mm |HH| Wm 




■ H 

Is H" ■ H m i 

ft ■ H 



II 

ffUHM 



■ 





:- *w T 







^"V 
V •& 

















^ .-ate. %/ .-&& \,/ - 







"V ** e , o °* ,<?? 

•voter. ^ ^ • 

* v ^ • 
















: J>% 



r ..•■••« <** 









• VS. d? ♦ rCOCWA" ^r. <^ * SB^ * VS. ^ V 

w* ^ v> •«■»♦ ** *v* ^Jfy* ^ ^ 

3* 




"oV 




^0* 










j>\ 



j&* V V* -.'WV <i 



5*^ 



r * V ^ • 




SESAME AND LILIES 



A NT) 



THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER 



fHacmtllan'g pocket iEnglts!) Classic*. 



A Series of English Texts, edited for use in Secondary 
Schools, with Critical Introductions, Notes, etc. 



!6mo. Levanteen. 25c. each. 



Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. 

Browning's Shorter Poems. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation. 

Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. 

Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. 

De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater. 

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

Eliot's Silas Marner. 

Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. 

Irving's The Alhambra. 

Longfellow's Evangeline. 

Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

Macaulay's Essay on Addison. 

Macaulay's Essay oh Milton. 

Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. 

Milton's Comus, Lycidas, and Other Poems. 

Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II. 

Pope's Homer's Iliad. 

Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 

Scott's Ivanhoe. 

Scott's The Lady of the Lake. 

Scott: s Marmion. 

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. 

Shelley and Keats : Poems. 

Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 

Tennyson's The Princess. 



OTHERS TO FOLLOW. 



SESAME AND LILIES 



AND 



THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER 



BY 

y 
JOHN RUSKIN 



Edited with Notes and an Introduction 

BY 

HERBERT BATES 

Head Teacher of English in the Manual Training 
High School of Brooklyn, N.Y. 



Nefo gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1900 

All rights reserved 



1 



85915 



Library of Congress! 

Two Copies Receivfq f 
DEC 8 1900 | 

r Copyright entry 
c7C*e_c_. i, tty co 

SECOND COPY 

Quivered to 

OROtH DIVISION 

DEC 22 1QQQ 



p<x 



Copyright, 1900, 
By THE MACMILLAX COMPANY. 



J. S. Cu9hing & Co. - Berwick k Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 




PREFATORY NOTE 



The text of this edition is based upon that of the English 
editions published by George Allen, Orpington, though there 
have been occasional returns, in minor details of punctuation, 
etc., to editions preceding. The editor would acknowledge the 
aid received in the preparation of these notes from P. W. T. 
Warren's excellent Reader's Companion to Sesame and Lilies. 

The preparation of this volume for use in schools has been 
the pleasanter task from the conviction, inevitably growing 
upon one as he studies these lectures, that they are, more than 
any book in our school courses, fitted to counteract the satisfied 
materialism and sordid commercialism of our cities. No work 
makes a stronger appeal to the best that is in every boy and 
girl. Few books are more ennobling, few so helpful in the 
shaping high ideals of life. 

Ruskin has his faults of style, of thought, of character. No 
one can study his work continuously without realizing these. 
But no one, thus studying his work, can fail to feel, little by 
little, that these defects, numerous as they are, sink into insig- 
nificance before the kindly, tender, wrong-hating, right-seeking 
man whose character shines from every page and paragraph. 
We go to him, not to learn mere facts, but to feel the stimulus 
of his genius and the inspiration of his generous idealism. 

H. B, 

v 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prefatory Note v 

Introduction : 

Ruskin the Man ix 

Ruskin the Writer xxii 

Ruskin' s Teaching and Influence .... xxvir 

Analysis of the Lectures xxxix 

Subjects for Composition * . xlvii 

Bibliography xlix 

SESAME AND LILIES 

Preface to Edition of 1882 i 

Preface to Edition of 1871 v 

I. Of Kings' Treasuries 1 

II. Of Queens' Gardens . 53 

III. Of the Mystery of Life 89 

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER 

Chapter I 129 

Chapter II 139 

Chapter III 145 

Chapter IV 151 

Chapter V 154 

Notes 159 

Index to Notes , • . 225 

vii 



INTRODUCTION 



RUSKIN THE MAN 

In mere events Ruskin's life offers little that is memorable. 
The main outline may be given very briefly. John Ruskin was 
born in London, on the 8th of February, 1819. His father was 
well off and of steadily increasing prosperity, a prosperity which 
became, in later years, really notable wealth. The boy's sur- 
roundings were such as to encourage taste for literature and 
the arts. His father, though in business a wine-merchant, felt 
no little interest both in books and in pictures, and the boy 
Ruskin had no lack of opportunity to form his taste. His 
early home education in one respect had a great influence 
upon his later style. His mother, who was deeply religious 
— reminding us in this respect of the influence of Carlyle's 
mother — required him not only to read the Bible aloud, every 
word, from Genesis to Revelation, but required also that he 
should memorize long passages. This early familiarity with 
the noble English of the King James version, coupled with an 
acquaintance with the grand words of the liturgy of the Church 
of England, had no little effect, as we shall see later, upon 
Ruskin's own manner of expression. 

Ruskin's childhood was spent only partially in London. 
Even in his first years, the summers were spent out of town, 
and, in his fourth year, his parents removed to Dulwich, on 
Heme Hill, a district built up now, but then open undulating 
country with a noble outlook. It was here that Ruskin spent 
all his childhood and early youth, and here that he formed 



X INTRODUCTION 

the intimacy with nature which marks his work — here, and in 
the little tours taken in company with his father and mother. 

For personal recollections of this period, read Ruskin's Prcete- 
rita, a book of charming reminiscense, written in his old age, 
looking back with a not uncheerful regret to these days of child- 
hood. We find that not only was he observing and enjoying, but 
that he had also begun to record his thoughts in rather primitive 
form. He made rhymes early (most writers of prose begin by 
writing verse) and began, at the advanced age of seven, a book. 
It was in three volumes, Harry and Lucy, or Early Lessons, 
obviously under the influence of the writings of Maria Edge- 
worth. There was to be a fourth volume, but the writer's per- 
sistence gave out, or his attention was distracted elsewhere, 
before it was accomplished. In themselves these books were 
not of much importance ; but in several points they are signifi- 
cant. They were, for one thing, printed letter by letter, by 
hand, with scrupulous industry — a typical feature in Ruskin's 
work in all branches. They were to be illustrated by copper- 
plates by himself, a feature showing his early interest in art 
and illustration, and typical of his earlier views in criticism, 
regarding art as illustration rather than as an end in itself. 

The tours, mentioned above, had an important influence. 
Every year Mr. and Mrs. Ruskin would set off on long journeys 
by carriage, in various parts of England and Scotland. These 
trips Mr. Ruskin took for business reasons, his wife going with 
him to watch over his health, and the boy John naturally 
accompanying them. Mr. Ruskin was a man of too refined 
tastes to give his whole attention to the customers of his house. 
He arranged the itinerary so that they should pass through the 
most picturesque country and the places of the greatest historical 
interest. And everything that they did see, they studied care- 
fully, recording their impressions, the father in his mature fashion, 
the boy in his Harry and Lucy, and similar boyish " books," 
illustrating his own work to the best of his boyish ability. 



RUSKIN THE MAN XI 

In tours of this kind, the family visited the greater part of 
England, including the lake country, Scotland, and, extending 
the limits beyond seas, France, Germany, and at last (1833), 
when, at the age of fourteen, John Ruskin had given over 
Harry and Lucy, to Switzerland, a country that was to have 
momentous influence on his writing and character. In Prczterita 
he writes with the deepest feeling of his first sight of the Alps, 
and of their effect upon his imagination. In all these tours, 
early or late, the written records were continued, and with 
these, sketches and study of drawing, especially of the work of 
Turner as shown in his illustrations to Roger's Italy, a book 
that the young Ruskin began to long to imitate, perhaps to 
surpass, both in text and pictures. 

All this time he had continued the writing of verse, and had 
gained strength in it. Not that his verse was the verse of 
a real poet. Ruskin had something of the gift of the poet, 
but not in measured song. His verses had melody, a charm 
of phrase, and imaginative beauty of thought, but they lacked 
as a rule any certainty of poetic inspiration. It was his later 
realization of this that made him give over attempts in verse. 
What does concern us in these first poetic writings is this : 
first that Ruskin had the spirit of the poet, a spirit developed 
in the attempt to sing for himself; second, that he had some- 
thing of the gift of the poet, not enough to wing his verses, 
but enough to lift his prose into lyric regions. If the poetic 
pinions of his Pegasus could not lift him off the earth, they 
could at least aid the swiftness and grace of his course upon it. 

Ruskin's education had been received at home, under a 
private tutor, Dr. Andrews. At the age of fifteen, as he was 
to go to college, it became necessary that he should have prepa- 
ration of another sort. He was therefore sent to a day-school 
in London, where he remained about two years, till an attack 
of pleurisy interrupted his studies. At this point in his life, 
then, the age of seventeen, he had received a decidedly desultory 






Xll INTRODUCTION 

education, at home and from private teachers. He had, in 
addition, taken lessons in drawing, from a Mr. Runciman, and 
had learned a great deal about the art himself by practice and 
the study of masterpieces. (It is interesting to conjecture as to 
the effect of a public school — Eton, Harrow, or Rugby — upon 
a boy of his tastes and disposition.) 

In 1836, Ruskin had reached the age of seventeen. Few 
young men get far past this age without at least the fancy that 
they are in love. It happened in Ruskin's case that a partner 
of his father, a Mr. Demecq, came over from Paris, bringing his 
four younger daughters, who all became guests at the Ruskin 
house. Ruskin was especially charmed with the eldest, Adele, 
whom he admire 1 with shy reverence — which her Parisian 
nature did not exactly comprehend. He remained devoted to 
her — without any obvious return to his devotion and various 
literary offerings — for several years, when he heard of her 
approaching marriage to a young French nobleman. It is 
unlikely that the disappointment left any deep trace on his 
nature. It probably did have an immediate influence on his 
health, doing something to bring about the general breakdown 
that followed, in 1840. 

In the meantime, Ruskin had done some little studying in 
water-color, and had become more and more interested in the 
paintings of Turner. (See page 190.) This interest went so 
far that he wrote and sent to Turner, for his approval, a 
defence of one of that artist's paintings of Venice. It was 
injudiciously superlative, and perhaps Turner did well in re- 
straining his young admirer from rushing into print with it. 
In it, however, we can see clearly the beginnings of the Modern 
Painters, that grand eulogy of Turner, which is in itself greater 
than the work of the master it champions. 

In Ruskin's college life, at Christ's College, Oxford, he con- 
tinued his interest in questions of art, writing a series of maga- 
zine papers on questions in architecture or painting, papers in 



RUSKIJST THE MAN Xlll 

which he seems, at the early age of nineteen, to have won not 
a little respectful attention. At Oxford, too, Ruskin began to 
form acquaintances. His father's ambition had thrown him 
into a set (the gentlemen commoners) with whom, in England, 
under ordinary circumstances, the son of a prosperous wine- 
merchant might have not had the chance to associate. Here 
he became acquainted at once with men of the very highest 
refinement, and with scholars of masterly attainments and in- 
spiring originality. He gained far more from such association 
than from his regular studies, in which his interest seems to 
have been merely moderate. He won a prize, it is true, for a 
poem, — but that lay rather outside the regular curriculum. 
These years of college were, in short, while amounting to little 
in formal learning, years important in stir: "fis and in begin- 
nings of activity — years of awakening and initiation of effort. 

In 1840, perhaps partly owing to the romance mentioned 
above, perhaps owing to over-application to books, Ruskin's 
health suddenly failed, and he was ordered abroad for the 
winter. He travelled rather despondently through France, 
into Italy, always under the cloud of threatened consumption, 
undergoing, besides, an attack of Roman fever, until at last 
there came a change, and strength and t confidence began to 
return. He threw off the disease and gradually overcame its 
effects. It was on his return from abroad, in Scotland, in the 
latter period of his convalescence, that he wrote — at the invita- 
tion of a charming Scotch maiden, who was to some extent 
taking in his affections the place of the lost Adele — the story, 
The King of the Golden River, included in this volume. 

In 1841, Ruskin had so far recovered that he could return 
to Oxford and " go up for a pass," honors being, on account of 
his lost year, quite out of reach. He received his degree of 
B.A., and returned to Heme Hill, where he diligently set to 
work upon the book that first brought him public attention, 
Modern Painters, His admiration for Turner had continued, 






xiv INTRODUCTION 

and study of his works had led to the perception that the 
secret of art lay in the endeavor to attain, not conventionalized, 
artificial beauty, but the beauty of truth, beauty attained by 
sincere, laboriously wrought representation of what the eye sees. 
This thought is summed up in a sentence in his Two Paths : 
"Whenever people don't look at nature, they always think 
they can improve her." He saw that the art of his day — and 
of many ager preceding — had been attempting to improve 
upon nature, not to search out humbly and worshipfully the 
beauty that is in her. It was to the preaching of this new 
gospel, — sincere, watchful study of the beauty of the visible 
world, that he resolved to devote himself. In this preaching- 
he selected, as his text, the paintings of Turner. 

At Heme House, he began and completed Part I. of the 
work which was to develop these ideas — to apply to art the 
gospel of sincerity that Carlyle had begun to announce in his 
tempestuous writings. And here his previous interest in min- 
eralogy and other forms of natural science served him in good 
stead. His studies of mountain form, of forms of foliage, of 
the lines of wave and cloud, gave his work a definiteness that 
demanded attention. He painted, with the pen of the artist in 
words, what he was urging artists to paint with the brush. 
The book appeared in April, 1843. Ruskin withheld his name, 
issuing the work simply as " By a Graduate of Oxford." It was 
a book which could not be overlooked; but the attention it 
received was, on the whole, hostile. It depreciated, perhaps 
unduly, the established masters and models in the art ; it ex- 
alted, altogether unduly, the paintings of Turner. Its teaching 
was true and needed ; but, like many new and true teachings, 
was uttered in superlatives. The theory, as a whole, was too 
firmly rooted in truth to be overthrown by attack. But details 
afforded unlimited opportunities for assault, and these oppor- 
tunities were not neglected. Ruskin awoke to find himself 
famous — or infamous, according to the views of his reader. 



RUSKIN THE MAN XV 

His book became, among artists and critics, a centre of heated 
discussion. 

The next few years he spent studying art in Italy, and 
mountain form in the Alps — becoming newly and deeply in- 
terested in works of early Christian art. It was at this time 
that he wrote the Seven Lamps of Architecture, pointing out 
the spirit that must underlie all great achievement in that art; 
following it, a few years later, by the Stones of Venice, a more 
detailed and definite study of the connection of art with national 
and religious life. 

In 1848 he was married to the young Scotch girl for whom 
he had written The King of the Golden River. This marriage 
— for reasons for which Ruskin cannot well be blamed — 
turned out most unhappily. Six years later his wife left him. 
Ruskin bore this trial with the most dignified and unselfish 
silence. There is little doubt, however, that it affected his 
later life and character. One may bear it in mind in reading 
in the third lecture what he has to say of disappointment. 

In 1851 came the beginnings of the great Pre-Raphaelite 
movement, a movement in which Ruskin took deep interest, 
and which associates his name with those of Rossetti, Morris, 
Swinburne, Holman Hunt, and Edward Burne-Jones. It was 
a movement marked by imitation of some peculiarities of early 
Christian and mediaeval art. Detail was rendered with peculiar 
fidelity ; symbolism lay in everything represented ; the works 
of the Pre-Raphaelites, in short, were marked by oddity and 
novel beauty — and puzzled the public. In defending this 
work, as in his advocacy of Turner, Ruskin came into op- 
position to popular opinion, yet in the end prevailed, bringing 
the public to his way of thinking. The paintings of Burne- 
Jones and Rossetti are to-day highly prized, and the indirect 
influence of the teachings of the " Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," 
as applied by Morris to household decorations and painting, is 
seen on every hand. 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

About this time, Ruskin began to take an interest in politi- 
cal economy, the science dealing with distribution of wealth and 
the condition of society. This interest came naturally from his 
interest in art ; there was a connection, — a vital connection, 
which maturity made him see with increasing clearness. In 
his earlier writings, the chief end was art, the faithful depiction 
of beauty. Then came the perception that such depiction was 
possible only as a result of right living and right thinking, and, 
following on this, came clearer and clearer a realization that 
the life and thought of this world are far, very far indeed, from 
what they should be. 

The more Ruskin reflected on the life of the average laboring 
man, a life of ugliness and mechanical drudgery, devoid of 
beauty or aspiration — the more he looked at our cities, full of 
smoke and iron and ugliness — the more clearly he perceived 
that our ideals are at fault. It was owing to this perception, 
a perception which with every year sank deeper into his nature, 
that he left questions purely of art, neglecting the mere symp- 
toms of the evil, and attacking what he felt to be the root, — 
the greed and commercialism of modern life. Nothing, he tells 
us, can be done in art unless men are right in life — and our 
whole theory of life is evil, selfish, mean, degrading. In Unto 
this Last he denounces the premises of modern political economy, 
which takes it for granted that one man is always trying to 
"get ahead" of every other; he insists that value should 
denote not worth, or value in exchange, but usefulness to man. 
In Sesame and Lilies, his teaching lies before us. In later 
works, Fors Clavigera and others, the same lessons are reiter- 
ated, reiterated because not learned, — nor have they been 
learned yet ! It was to preach these that Ruskin forsook, not 
entirely but in part, his art criticism, and it is for this new 
preaching that, at the time, and even since his death, admirers 
of his earlier writings on art have condemned him. The ques- 
tion of the wisdom of his action is too large to consider here. 



BUSKIN THE MAtf Xvii 

For a somewhat more extended treatment, see page xxxiv. 
Here it is important merely to record the change in his interests. 

Additional parts of Modern Painters came out, at intervals. 
Obviously in a work covering so many years, there were very 
significant changes both in style and thought. Ruskin, in his 
old age, attached comparatively little value to the earlier vol- 
umes. The world, however, is hardly of his opinion, regarding 
many of the descriptive passages found in them as among the 
finest in our literature. 

A list of Ruskin's principal writings is given, with comments, 
on the last page of this Introduction. The most notable have 
been mentioned. These, and some others, will be further dis- 
cussed in the consideration of Ruskin as a writer. 

Of other elements in Ruskin's life, space permits but a brief 
summary. His interest in the progress of the workingman 
led to more than words. He himself taught, in university 
extension classes, and lectured frequently on subjects related to 
art and culture. The lectures included in this volume illus- 
trate the latter form of his work. He was, besides, for many 
years, connected with university work as regular lecturer at 
Oxford. 

In the latter part of his life we find the breakdown almost 
to be expected after a life of such overstrenuous activity. His 
mind showed the strain first. Attacks of melancholia, tempo- 
rary cloudings of the intellect, made further work impossible, 
and from 1889 to the end of his life, 1900, he lived quietly at 
Brantwood, in the lake country, abandoning all attempts at 
work, beyond the revision of his earlier works, and the writing 
of such scattered biographical notes as are found in Prceterita. 
It was not that he suffered continually from derangement. The 
cloud that ended his work passed away ; but the impulse for 
active work and active championship of his beliefs was over. 
His work was ended. He must rest, must watch, from afar 
off, the success or failure of his past endeavor. 



XVlll INTROD UCTION 

Of Ruskin's person in 1853 we get the following picture : " A 
thin gentleman with light hair, a stiff white cravat, dark over- 
coat with velvet collar, walking, too, with a slight stoop. . . . 
' Dark hair, pale face, and massive marble brow — that is my 
ideal of Mr. Ruskin,' said a young lady near us. . . . This 
proved to be quite a fancy portrait. Mr. Ruskin has light, 
sand-colored hair ; his face is more red than pale ; the mouth 
well cut, with a great deal of decision in its curve, though 
somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength ; an aqui- 
line nose ; his forehead by no means broad or massive, but the 
brows full and well bound together." Of his manner the same 
writer says : " There were two styles essentially distinct, and 
not well blended, — a speaking and a writing style ; the former 
colloquial and spoken offhand ; the latter rhetorical and care- 
fully read in quite a different voice, — we had almost said in- 
toned. . . . His elocution is peculiar ; he has a difficulty in 
sounding the letter ' r,' and there is a peculiar tone in the ris- 
ing and falling of his voice at measured intervals, in a way 
scarcely ever heard, except in the public lection of the services 
appointed to be read in churches. You expect, in one so in- 
dependent, a manner free from conventional restraint, and an 
utterance, whatever may be the power of voice, at least expres- 
sive of a strong individuality ; and you find instead a Christ 
Church man of ten years' standing, who has not yet taken 
orders ; his dress and manners derived from his college tutor, 
and his elocution from the chapel reader." 

This is not altogether a kindly description, but it sounds as 
if true. As for the " two styles," they may be easily detected 
without hearing the voice of the reader. We can distinguish 
them in the Lectures before us. In Lecture I., for example, 
Section 5 is in the offhand tone of conversation ; Section 42, 
on the other hand, is in the written manner, and, if one 
read aloud, one will, especially if familiar with the cadences 
of the English Church or Episcopal ritual, find one's self 



RUSKIN THE MAN XIX 

slipping into the " intoning " of which the Edinburgh critic 
speaks. 

In 1870 we find a description differing from the first not 
more than we should expect, after an interval of almost twenty 
years. " A face young-looking and beardless ; made for expres- 
sion, and sensitive to every change of emotion." His hair, we 
learn, had darkened into deep brown, without a trace of grey. 
His forehead was not " of the heroic type," but " as if the 
sculptor had heaped his clay in handfuls over the eyebrows, 
and then heaped more." The size of the nose and of the large 
" thoroughbred " nostrils is mentioned, as well as the general 
firmness of the whole face, to which the twenty years seem to 
have given intensity. The portrait of 1871 affords some inter- 
esting points of comparison with that of Carlyle. Both faces 
are typically Scotch, and there is between them a resemblance, 
hard to reduce to particulars, but according well with the 
intellectual kinship in the writings of the two men. 



Ruskin was not only charitable, but singularly well placed in 
life to put his kindly feelings to active exercise. It has been 
mentioned that Ruskin's father was rich. At his death Ruskin 
fell heir to a very considerable fortune, — some $600,000, with 
other property. Yet when he died, in 1900, this property was 
found, by numerous acts of philanthropy, to have diminished to 
a very moderate amount. We find him, 1854, taking charge 
of drawing classes at the workingmen's college, giving work, 
not money, and work of a singularly exhausting sort. His giv- 
ing, we observe, was generally of a public sort. Philanthropy, 
rather than charity, in fact, describes Ruskin's spirit. He cared 
less for giving than for aiding. His tendencies were broadly 
humanitarian. He desires, he says, rather to give where his 
money " will be fruitful than where it will be merely helpful. I 
would rather lecture for a school than I would not for a distressed 



XX INTRODUCTION 

author. ... I like to prop the falling more than to feed the 
fallen." In accordance with this statement, as an- examination 
of his life shows, he carried on a multitude of such fruitful 
charities. Rossetti received important assistance. Letters, pub- 
lished (without authority) in the New Review, March, 1892, 
show the extent and true helpfulness of the assistance extended 
in other directions. In many workingmen he took a personal 
interest, and some of the letters he wrote to them have been 
collected and published in his works. 

We find him trying to improve the condition of the lower- 
class dwellings of London, experimenting with property of his 
own. Later, in 1877, and the years following, we find him 
establishing an organization, St. George's Guild, to put into 
practice the very moderate form of socialism that he advocated. 
Each member must do some work for his living, practise 
certain general precepts of religion and morality, obey the 
authority of the guild, and contribute to the common fund. 
The guild was to acquire land, and to cultivate it, preferring 
manual labor to machinery. It was to purchase or construct 
mills and factories, preferring water-power to steam, and mak- 
ing the lives of the employees as healthful and happy as possible. 
It was, besides, to establish places of recreation and of elemen- 
tary instruction in literature, science, and art. These plans 
were, to some extent, carried out in reality. A museum was 
organized at Sheffield, land was farmed, though with no great 
success, by a community, and mills, under the auspices of the 
guild, began to put into practice principles of cooperation. The 
museum, installed in a new and adequate building, remains, and 
the industries begun by the guild are still, many of them, flour- 
ishing, though severed from its direct oversight. 

By means of gifts to such objects, and by other gifts of which 
the public has been permitted to know nothing, a great part of 
the wealth inherited from the elder Ruskin had disappeared, 
as has been said, before John Ruskin's death. And its dis- 



RUSKIN THE MAN xxi 

appearance, if not creditable to Ruskin's economy, is certainly 
creditable to the sincerity of his sympathy. It is true that he 
did refuse to give, often from reasons apparently eccentric, but 
these refusals were never founded in unkindness or in the lack 
of charity. He did feel the desirability of self-help, and he did 
his best, by advice, by endowments, by gift of his own time and 
thought and skill, to better the condition of the workingmen of 
England. And the workingmen of England and of America have 
not failed to recognize his endeavor. 



A trait which is very significant in the study of his character 
is Ruskin's love of children. All children recognized in him at 
once a sincere friend. There was in him, as in Lowell, the 
eternal childhood of the true poet, a childhood that children at 
once recognized. ' He had no " dignity " with them. He romped 
with them, like a child himself, and wrote nonsense letters and 
verses that cast a very pleasant light upon his character. No 
man with such tenderness can be a cynic. Read his recol- 
lections of child friends in Prctterita, — a book that casts 
much light on this part of his nature, — and see if you can 
regard him as a "scold," or as a man embittered with the 
world. In his relations with all who were striving to accom- 
plish good, he appears ever the same — kindly, helpful, a true 
friend, tender in sympathy. If to such as antagonized, or seemed 
to him to antagonize, the cause of beauty and truth, he was stem, 
even fierce, in his resentment, this resentment sprang from his 
very love for the beautiful and gentle right that they seemed to 
him opposing. There was, through all minor errors of his life, 
the one great endeavor that he urges in others, — " the effort to 
be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word 
and deed." No life, certainly no life of genius, devoted to this 
effort, can fail to make the world better. 



XX11 INTRODUCTION 



RUSKIN THE WRITER 

People read Ruskin's works for several reasons — some for 
his teaching regarding man's ideals and duties to his fellow- 
man ; some for his teachings on art ; some for his portrayal of 
the wonders of nature and his helpful guidance to those that 
would see these ; some for the wonderful magic of his style, the 
" prose-poetry " of his utterance, the ability, as he calls it, of 
setting " his words prettily together " ; some for all these com- 
bined. Yet the last, which Ruskin holds least, the mere 
knack of setting words prettily together, is an art not to be 
esteemed lightly. 

Ruskin's style has several clearly marked characteristics. In 
some of these it reminds us of the writings of Blackmore, in 
others of Carlyle, in others of the English Bible, in others of 
Hooker and the great prose Elizabethans, in others, and in the 
whole accumulated impression, it resembles nothing but itself 
— and the writing of those that imitate it. Let us note a few 
of these peculiarities : — 

First, the effect is remarkably connected. The impression is 
uniformly liquid. There are no breaks, no abrupt leaps re- 
quired of the reader, as in Carlyle. So far from being annoyed 
by irregularity, we are lulled even to inattention by a blandness 
of fluency and are carried uncomprehendingly, as in the verse 
of Swinburne, on a stream of gliding words. The connection, 
in short, amounts almost to diffuseness. There is the copious- 
ness of offhand speech, rather than the compressed restraint 
of deliberated writing. 

To some extent this characteristic is traceable to his early 
study of the English Bible, in which fluent clearness and 
paralleled reiteration are so apparent. It marks, too, Hooker 
and the early Elizabethan writers whom he admired. Still 
more does it spring from the didactic nature of Ruskin's own 



BUSKIN THE WRITER xxill 

mind, from his desire to explain as to a child. He is always 
talking or writing " down," not from a conceited notion that he 
is much wiser than his audience, but from a wish — originating 
in his great earnestness — to be " understood." He is not only- 
telling you a fact ; he is teaching you that fact, explaining, 
reiterating, and illustrating. And sometimes indeed, so exten- 
sive are his explanations, so intricate his comments, that his very 
desire to be understood results in difficulty in comprehending 
his meaning. 

This difficulty in following his thought springs also, in part, 
from a peculiarity of his mind. His work, while excelling in 
connection, — in, that is, what the text-books of rhetoric call 
"Coherence," — is singularly deficient in real connection of 
thought, in oneness of main idea, or, technically, in " Unity." 
One subject suggests another, and he lacks resolution to resist 
the enticing suggestion. " Ruskin," says Mr. Robertson, " is 
simply an irregular series of lightning zig-zags." Perhaps he 
might as justly be compared to the child that follows the 
butterfly and loses his way. Ruskin is always pursuing butter- 
flies. He usually captures them, but he often incidentally 
leads his reader far afield, and sometimes leaves him there. 
This peculiarity results from the intense alertness of his mind, 
combined with a certain irresolution in intention. No matter 
what he sets out to do, he is likely, on the way, to catch sight 
of something more enticing. It is, one must own, often some- 
thing far better than what he set out in search of. He finds 
gold while looking for coal, and one is not inclined to censure 
the substitution. Still, this characteristic lends to his writing 
at once a peculiar charm, and a peculiar sense of defect. One 
feels at once a delightful surprise at finding treasures where one 
expected only merchandise, and a sense of perplexity that one is 
not where one expected to be, a bewildered impression "of 
having forgotten something." In this, Ruskin differs from De 
Quincey. De Quincey too is inclined to ramble, but with tin's 



XXIV INTRODUCTION 

difference : When De Quincey leaves the path, he always puts 
in a peg to mark the place, and comes back to that peg. Ruskin, 
while always leading us along softly and pleasantly, apparently 
does not know when he leaves the path, seldom returns to it 
where he left it, and sometimes fails to get back to the original 
path at all. De Quincey has a mind that pursues a straight 
road, with endless little " stop-over " excursions to interesting 
points on this side and that. Ruskin "wanders at his own 
sweet will," in a course that is the mere resultant of his passing 
impressions, but a course so charming that the reader follows 
him without question. 

A distinguishing mark of Ruskin's prose style is its rhythm, 
the regularity and harmonious distribution of the accent. Toward 
this, his early writing of verse and familiarity with the Bible 
and the English Prayer Book (especially the versions of the 
Psalms) undoubtedly had great influence. Usually this is a 
merit. Sometimes, where he oversteps the demarcation between 
prose and verse, and indulges in regular metrical form, it be- 
comes a defect. Observe, for example, such passages as, " That 
the fabric of it was fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it 
as transient as the dew," or, " There is fire stronger than the 
lightning, and a grace more precious than the rain." In these 
the rhythm seems too pronounced for prose. Compare with 
these the following : " Far among the moorlands and the 
rocks, — far in the darkness of the terrible streets, — these 
feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their 
stems broken — will you never go down to them, nor set in 
order their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in, in their 
trembling, from the fierce wind ? " Here the rhythm is more 
irregular, not lapsing into the beat of verse ; yet perceptible, 
avoiding the uninspired irregularity of familiar prose. In both 
there is a related element, the harmony and smooth conjunc- 
tion of sound, sometimes in obvious alliteration, as in fabric, 
fragile, feeble, florets, fence, and fierce; in other cases felt but 



RUSKIN THE WRITER XXV 

not recognized as such, in concealed alliteration, as among 
the moorlands ; endurance, dew ; beds, fence, trembling. Note 
other instances of this, for it is a marked beauty of Ruskin's 
style. 

In Ruskin's writing two distinct manners have been noted, 
— one conversational, offhand; the other a "written style," 
delivered in rhythmical intonation. Such passages as those 
quoted above were certainly delivered in the latter manner; 
they cannot, in fact, be rightly delivered without some enforce- 
ment of their lyric, poetic character. Ruskin's conversational 
style — in which he shows a tendency to "write down" to his 
readers — is very different. Compare the opening part of 
Lecture I. with the more lyric passages toward the end and 
note the differences. In the first case, Ruskin is talking; in 
the second, preaching, or chanting in the cadences of the poet. 
The two styles are not, as has been said, well mingled. There 
is no fusion. Points of junction show plainly. Yet, after all, 
the contrast stimulates, and the whole effect, like that of a 
building of rough freestone and shining marble, gains in richness 
by the contrast in texture. 

Rhetorically considered, Ruskin's sentences incline to be loose, 
rather than periodic. Their grammatical structure, that is, is 
complete long before the last word. Generally, they have what 
might be called a continued construction, clause added to clause, 
phrase to phrase, the continuation frequently indicated by the 
dash, as in the sentence last but one in Lecture II ; see also 
examples in Queen of the A ir, — as the celebrated description 
of the Serpent, Section 68, or of the Bird, Sections 65, 66. 

With regard to his use of words, Ruskin is, again, individual. 
What he advised the reader to do (Lecture I., Section 15) he 
has done himself ; he has mastered the history and character of 
words, and uses them with a fine regard to all their meanings, 
" masked " and apparent. The notes call attention to souk 4 such 
cases of fitness. The number of words from which he chooses 



XXVI INTRODUCTION 

seems, besides, unusually large. He employs at least, words 
which the ordinary reader finds unfamiliar — a habit that is in 
some respects a disadvantage. 

Another peculiarity is the odd exuberance of Buskin's fancy 
— his liking for doing rather simple things in fashions deliber- 
ately eccentric — a grotesque playfulness, related, perhaps, to 
his admiration for the quaint elaboration of Gothic ornament. 
One finds examples in plenty in these lectures, in the mention, 
for example, of the screen "folded in two, instead of four," 
and in the playing upon the name Maud, in Sections 94-95 
of Queens' Gardens. The same fantastic tendency shows in his 
choice of titles. Note the titles of his books and compare these 
with the descriptions that follow. Ariadne Florentina, Deu- 
calion, Ethics of the Dust, and Notes on the Construction of 
Sheepfolds cast little light on the nature of the subject-matter. 
Each is appropriate, but its appropriateness is ingeniously 
remote. The fancy is of the same sort that made Buskin, in 
writing to children, describe himself by such extraordinary titles 
as " Little Pigs," and play tricks of fancy that would do credit 
to the author of Alice's Adventures. This oddity, while it 
entertains the reader, certainly does not assist him. 

Belated to this peculiarity, — no less noticeable, and, to the 
average reader, no less objectionable, is his inclination to refer- 
ence and allusion. Of wide reading himself — reading largely 
in unusual directions — he seems to presuppose in the reader 
an equal familiarity with all that he himself happens to recall. 
His reader is presumed not only to have read, like himself, the 
Bible from end to end, word by word, to have studied Dante 
and Shakespeare with no less patient accuracy, but also to 
have mastered and trodden all the picturesque byways of early 
Italian art and modern science. Nor is this limited to book 
experience. He presupposes also actual travel, — travel in 
England, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, — till the stay-at- 
home reader despairs of comprehension. Lowell tells us that 



RUSKIN THE WRITER XXvii 

familiarity with the common sources of allusion and reference 
is justly to be expected of all readers. But Ruskin goes far 
beyond common sources, and complacently takes it for granted 
that books and places of which Ruskin may himself have been 
for years quite ignorant are matters of course to every reader. 
That this habit of reference and allusion was carried too far, 
Ruskin himself later recognized. Yet, in its way, it is not un- 
stimulating. For it is an active reminder of what one is sup- 
posed to have read and seen, an index of what one should 
resolve to read and see. And, if the actual wonderland of 
Switzerland and Italy is inaccessible, there remains the ac- 
cessible wonderland of Dante,' Milton, and Shakespeare, treas- 
ures from which Ruskin has exhibited the enticement of stray 
gems and strewn gold dust. 

To return, in conclusion, to Ruskin's writings as a whole, 
not only does he wander, but he repeats. In each new book, 
he goes over the ground he has trodden in his previous works, 
or, — perhaps a truer figure, — on whatever ground he wanders, 
he reiterates the same lessons. Take any one subject, the evil, 
for example, of ugly factories, and you will find it emerging, 
in a hundred vivid forms in a hundred different chapters. 
Each new book amends the teaching of its predecessor, and 
with each new book, Ruskin, like the child who recopies an 
exercise, casts the earlier draft away dissatisfied. It would be 
interesting to compile a table of cross-references that would en- 
able one to compare these varied forms of each teaching. In 
some places in the notes such references have been indicated, 
but the whole task is too great to undertake in this volume. 
The pupil in his reading (if he owns his copy, as he should) 
should pencil in the margin any additional parallelisms. 

As for Ruskin's literary style in general, all critics agree 
as to its beauty. He is master of a medium between prose and 
verse, a cadenced utterance of his own, so musical that, were it 
meaningless, the ear would still find pleasure in its harmonies. 



XXV1U INTROD UCTION 



HUSKIES TEACHING AND INFLUENCE 

No study of Ruskin's life is complete without consideration 
of his teaching and his influence. This topic can be treated 
here but slightly. The literature of the subject is considerable, 
however, and the student will find that opinions by no means 
coincide. There are several distinctly defined positions, in re- 
lation to which the opinions of critics may be classified. There 
are, first, those that think that Ruskin, fallacious in his philoso- 
phy of human life, his views of art, and his theories of economics, 
holds a high place as a writer, a position due to his power of 
expression, presenting pictures that, " to the inner eye," surpass 
sights really seen. To them his greatest writing lies in the 
descriptive passages of Modern Painters, and in similar pas- 
sages in his other writings. To some, his philosophy of life, as 
expressed in the lectures before us, is an additional excellence. 
They cannot approve of his economy, and distrust his opinions 
on art, but feel that he did have a perception — a perception 
he was singularly able to convey to others, of the nobility of life, 
and the dignity of work, and the beauty of spiritual charity. 
Others yet will indorse his teachings in art, holding that much 
of the progress of the English art of the nineteenth century is 
owing to his influence. Others — and these are a minority — 
will defend his utterances upon political economy and social 
philosophy, holding that he pointed out vital truths that econo- 
mists prior to his day neglected — that he has even, so one writer 
has declared, revolutionized the theory of the economists. All, 
to sum up, recognize Ruskin as a writer of genius ; almost all 
admit him to be an inspiring preacher of spirituality; many 
admit him to have been an epoch-making critic of art ; a certain 
number assert that he taught the world new lessons about Work 
and Wealth. 

What was Ruskin's teaching and what his influence upon the 



RUSKIN'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE XXIX 

world ? A close reading of the three lectures before us will show 
certain dominant lessons ; and a reading of his other works will 
show the same teaching the common factor in all his utterances. 
Let us see what this is. 

The eighteenth century was a century of materialism. Not 
that there was little religion, in the conventional sense. There 
was little interest in what lay above the real, the practical, the 
human. Romance had been tabooed. The novel studied not 
emotion, but man, " the proper study of mankind." Writing 
had become an attempt to attain technical rhetorical perfection. 
Poetry had become mere polished verse • life, mere polished ex- 
istence. To possess money, to be "respected," — that, in the 
eighteenth century, was the ultimate of the English ideal. 
And these characteristics, or a considerable part of them, did 
not cease with the eighteenth century, but continued into the 
nineteenth, and are with us still in the twentieth, and will be 
with us, in some measure, till the Millennium. The eighteenth 
century differed from others only in the universality of this 
mood, in the comparative absence of higher ideals, and the 
absence of prophets to arouse it from its sluggishness. 

With the nineteenth century, these prophets came. Follow- 
ing on the casual songs of Burns, the stray lyrics of Blake, 
came the great poetic utterances of Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
followed by the lyric power and beauty of Byron, Keats, and 
Shelley. And upon these, like supporting artillery, followed 
the writings of Carlyle and Ruskin, to awake the public to the 
meaning of the age in which they lived. 

A prophet does not necessarily foretell. He may merely 
denounce evil and arouse to good. All great prophets, philoso- 
phers, and teachers have been of this type. All have striven in 
the attempt to make people stop in their selfish haste after food 
and animal comfort, to make them stop and question and consider, 
— to make them feel a divine discontent with the brute in man, 
the aspiration of the god that within us struggles with the brute. 



XXX IXTRODUCTIOX 

At this aimed Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, or " Clothes Phi- 
losophy." It stripped man and his life of the artificial trappings 
of custom and convention, and showed us Man, the being, the 
mystery, alone, bewildered, here upon the earth, and asked, 
" How came he here? Where is he going'?" It forced peo- 
ple to do what so many regard as ridiculous — to take life 
seriously, to ask the great question, " What is worth while ? " 

— and to search nature, heaven, earth, the stars, and their souls, 
for an answer. It was with such a message that Carlyle 
jarred the world awake with Saxon-clashing sentences. It was 
with such a message — in far other terms, — that the Wesleys 
roused the conscience of the lethargic English. It was with 
such a message that Xewman and his circle stirred Catholic and 
Episcopal England to the core. It was with such a message 
that Ruskin came before the world, already stirring in its sleep 

— a message tenderer than Carlyle's, yet with a loving scorn of 
all that hindered the good that he sought to bring about. 

Ruskin's teaching is, first of all, the lesson of self-develop- 
ment. It is not what a man has that is to be considered, or 
what a man is thought to be, but what is he. Is he a " self- 
made man," not in exterior circumstances, but in wealth *of 
character? One must, at the very outset, realize the mystery 
and wonder of life, discard the placid superiority to enthusiasm 
that is the mark of the artificial man, cultivate the openness 
of perception, the retention of the childish sense of wonder that 
marks the true man, the man who, his eyes admiringly wide 
to the world about him, is worthy of the power that placed 
him in it. 

For such development, one must have suitable inspiration. 
One must learn from the noble fellowship of great writers, whose 
companionship is gained in books (Kings' Treasuries), from the 
noble surroundings of nature, from the noble inspiration of 
noble women, and from the reflex impulse of noble activity in 
well doing. If we disfigure nature with smoke, ugly buildings, 



HUSKIES TEACHING AND INFLUENCE xxxi 

vulgar advertising, — if we close our eyes to beauty, and are too 
" superior " to notice the wonderful changes of star and cloud, 

— if we close our hearts to compassion and cultivate indifference 
to the welfare of our fellow-man, — if we withhold our hands 
from work, and make it our ideal to exist in aristocratic idleness 
and empty pleasure, — if we do all these, we may estimate our- 
selves highly according to the artificial standard of " society " 

— but we shall fall far short of the true stature of spiritual 
manhood. 

To be willing to see the beauty that is, — to show helpful 
sympathy for men about us, to be willing to and glad to work 
for the joy of doing our work well, and, above all, to keep clear 
our sight of the real mystery and nobility of life, — that, in 
short, is the burden of Ruskin's teaching. And it is a teaching 
that the world still needs, for the lesson is by no means learned. 

In matters of art, there has been an inclination to depreciate 
Ruskin's influence. This seems unwarranted. True, Ruskin 
was not himself an artist of genius. Yet no one studying his 
work can deny that he was a skilful craftsman, and that he had 
an eye gifted to catch the essence of what he drew. As for his 
teaching, one should, before disparaging, read through the five 
volumes of Modern Painters thoughtfully and without preju- 
dice, and should, while reading, bear in mind what traditions 
governed English painting when these volumes were written. 
The book may have been unnecessary, yet where English painters 
formerly painted what they wished to see, they now try to paint 
what they do see, to render character in tree and cloud and 
wave and mountain as Ruskin counselled. Take the best-drawn 
illustrations of our magazines. Compare them with the aver- 
age illustrations of Ruskin's day. Compare them with such 
illustration as Ruskin praised, and see if his advice has not 
produced its effect. Artists study nature as they did not, and 
respect the truth of nature as they had no notion of doing until 
the time of Modern Painter*. True, the change of taste may 



XXX11 INTRODUCTION 

have been independent of the book ; yet when one considers 
how widely Modern Painters has been read, and how widely 
it has been admired, it does not seem unreasonable to presume 
a connection. 

However the change came about, present-day art is largely in 
accord with the teachings of Kuskin, and is criticised in ac- 
cordance with the principles put before us in his volume — the 
main principles, for the details are naturally often at fault. 
Modern Painters was the work of his youth, and in it there 
grow literary tares among the true sesame. Yet the vital prin- 
ciples stand out permanent above minor errors of observation or 
judgment, — permanent because founded on the very nature of 
man and art. 

The aim of Modern Painters was chiefly this : to enunciate 
a theory of art, to show, that is, the proper aims and methods 
of landscape painting, discussing selection of material, truth in 
tone, color, outline, light, and shade, and then, in detail, truth 
in representation of sky, of earth, of water, of vegetation. All 
these are discussed chiefly in regard to the works of Turner, 
a painter who, in the eyes of Ruskin, excelled in truth to nature 
all contemporary English artists. 1 Euskin pointed out in Tur- 
ner's work attempted fidelity to nature, and indicated no less 
definitely where others went astray. He was often extreme, 
even injudicious. His enthusiasm led him to see Turner's merits 
magnified, to overlook equal merits in others, and to overlook, 
moreover, Turner's own defects. So far as his statements apply 
merely to Turner, they are open to dispute. So far as they 
apply to painting in general or to nature in general, most of 
them are now accepted as a matter of course. In Turner's 
famous Slaveship — perhaps owing to the fading of the pig- 
ment — we can no longer see what Ruskin saw there. Yet that 
description gave new ideals as to what a picture might be. 

1 See note on Turner and his work, on page 190 of this edition. 



BUSKIN'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE xxxiii 

Ruskin's teaching has led the world beyond Turner. At the 
time, Turner revealed new truth. The same truth has since 
found revelation more adequate. Ruskin's theories have found 
other exponents. Yet it seems more than likely that the present 
disparagement may be merely a fashion — partly a miscompre- 
hension, that time will again overcome. It is only just, in any 
event, to trace the present art spirit to its origin. The words 
of Modern Painters, the advice and influence which directed the 
efforts of admiring Pre-Raphaelites, the host of books and lec- 
tures addressed to all art lovers of England, have done more to 
shape English and American taste in art than any other single 
influence traceable in history. It is easy, now, to point out 
errors in the manner. It was not easy for one man, though 
armed with energy and eloquence, to convince a world that 
cared nothing. 

Many who admit the value of Ruskin's teachings in art, speak 
slightingly of his doctrines in political economy. Here we find a 
bewildering difference in opinion. If you would study the ques- 
tion more thoroughly, read Unto this Last, comparing with it 
some standard text-book, and reading besides articles that dis- 
cuss Ruskin's views. You will find between Ruskin's ideas and 
the accepted views notable differences. A chief distinction lies 
in his definition of Value as " the power of any thing to support 
life." Wheat can sustain the substance of the body, pure air can 
sustain its warmth, and a " cluster of flowers of given beauty " 
has " a fixed power of enlivening or animating the senses and 
heart." The whole attention of the orthodox economists has 
been given to purchasing power, value in exchange. To Ruskin, 
viewing man as a being of emotions, sentiments, and sympathies, 
any view which did not call these into account seemed inadequate. 
Profit is not the only motive of human action. If, as he puts 
it, there is but one piece of bread for a starving family, — 
mother and several little children, — the mother, as strongest, 
would, according to orthodox theory, get that piece. That she 



XXXIV INTROD UCTION 

does not, shows that power does not always imply possession. 
Happiness in life must, besides, be measured by other things 
than money. People, to be ideal men and women, not only 
must have food, clothes, and a place to sleep, but must have 
also beautiful and ennobling surroundings. Pleasure should be 
an estimable asset. In its ugly cities, its dishonestly made 
clothing, its prevailing shams and meannesses, the present time 
offends against the ideals of life. William Morris, affected by 
these teachings, preached an ideal social commonwealth, with- 
out smoke or machinery, without competition or envy. Ruskin 
saw little good in the extreme socialistic ideal, nor did he wish 
entirely to dispose of machinery ; he did feel that the ugliness 
should be done away with, and that working people should not 
be relegated, as a penalty for leading industrious lives, to filth 
and degradation. And the economist's idea that progress de- 
pends on competition, the unceasing and merciless battle of each 
man against his neighbor, he denounced as infamous. 

It was sympathy with man, especially with the workingman 
of England, which led him to take up these questions. Was it 
necessary that things should be as they were 1 Was ugliness 
irremediable, vulgarity a part of the eternal scheme of creation ? 
He preferred to look for a remedy. Apparently he failed. His 
writings were not well received. He was told that an art critic 
should not meddle with such matters, and what he said was 
regarded, coining from the writer of Modern Painters, as the 
dreaming of a man who knew nothing of his subject. Yet, 
looking back to-day, Ave see that he did not fail. His lessons 
have had their effect, and time has justified, at least in part, 
his social philosophy. 

In taking up the study of political economy, Ruskin was not 
changing his interests. There is a common factor between his 
writings upon art and upon political economy. In both he 
advocated higher ideals. In both his end was the improve- 
ment of man's condition in the world and the development of 






RUSKW'S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE XXXV 

the spiritual in man. As to his knowledge of his subject, John 
Ruskin was not a man to write upon any topic till he had 
studied it to the best of his ability. He did not write of the 
drawing of the mountains till he had made a thorough study 
of geology and mineralogy. He did not write of cloud forms 
till he had sought out laboriously, in books of science and in 
the clouds themselves, the nature of their being. Nor did he 
write of political economy till he had read with care and 
thought what the recognized economists had to say upon the 
subject. He may have been in error. If he was, his error did 
not spring from negligence. One should base condemnation of 
Ruskin's theories upon a study of what Ruskin really said, 
not on the fact that he wrote on both political economy and 
art. It is not impossible that one man might tell truths 
about both. This much is sure : In political economy, as in 
art, opinions have altered. The elements that Ruskin wished 
men to consider are being more and more taken into considera- 
tion. Man is regarded as having some other elements than 
combative acquisitiveness. Beauty in one's surroundings is 
becoming recognized as of advantage. Parks, recreation piers, 
libraries, museums, are allowed to have a certain " practical " 
value. It is acknowledged that a railway train need not be 
ugly, and that an iron bridge is not the worse for "archi- 
tecture." People talk of preserving fine bits of woodland, and 
there is objection to the destruction of the Palisades of the 
Hudson River. Societies are formed to prevent the disfiguring 
of landscape by advertisements. Laws are passed to obviate 
the clouds of smoke that darken our cities. The needless 
noise of city life is being bit by bit suppressed. New schemes 
are devised almost daily for the housing of the workmen in 
" model tenements " and " colonies." All these reforms may 
have nothing to do with the teachings of the " unpractical " 
John Ruskin, yet, coming as they do after his writings and 
lectures, accompanied as they are by the building of Ruskin 



XXX vi IX J ROD UCTIOX 

halls in England and America, they are suggestive. Perhaps 
here, as in the case of art, some are reluctant to trace an 
effect to its logical cause. 

It is well to reflect, in this connection, upon the words of 
Mr. Mather, in his Lift of Buskin ; "One of the best wa - 
he suggests, " of judging the work of Buskin is to suppose the 
njn-appearance of the man. ... It would be the mere- 
commonplace to speak of the loss to English literature. There 
would have been other losses, however, heavier and more fatal 
than merely the loss to the formative thought of the century. 
Buskin's books have made men, because they have made men 
think, and they have broadened the minds of men, because they 
have put them in touch with the great thought of the past. . . . 
They have conduced to that seriousness without which literature 
and life are fleeting and inane. And because of this, they have 
aroused wrathfulness keiy. . . . Those whose 

1 Let us alone,' cannot let him alone, because his writings are 
as a whip to torment them. There are, however, those whom 
he has aroused to a better mind. They are many, and the; 
their turn, have aroused a better national mind. Thus Buskin, 
while not leaving behind him a school, leaves behind him a tone, 
a temper, and a life that is becoming as widespread in England 
as any of the ruling sentiments of the age. w 

Buskin is often spoken of as a scold. It is true that he 
occasionally denounced. So do- teacher. The 

question is. Was his scolding helpful I Did he merely abuse 
people for being what they inavoidably are, or did he, while 
blaming, point the road to improvement '■ To the reader of his 
works the question answers itself Ruskin -never blames with- 
out indicating an escape from the fault blamed. His reproaches 
are to rouse to action, not to confirm in despair. He has 
for instance, Lecture I., Section 40) the deepest confidence in 
his fellow-countrymen. He realizes that they have the power, 
and the will, but he realizes, too, that, like strong and stubborn 



RUSKIN' S TEACHING AND INFLUENCE XXXVli 

horses, they will bear a deal of lashing before one can rouse 
them to their true pace. 

Isaiah and Jeremiah, for all the latter's " Lamentations," are 
not denounced as " scolds," yet their prophecy is mainly denun- 
ciation of evil. And it is evil that Ruskin reproves. He 
reproves ugliness and the vulgar toleration of ugliness ; he re- 
proves gross content in material prosperity ; he reproves greed 
and hostile competition. One would hardly maintain that these 
things are admirable. He reproves, with peculiar bitterness, 
religious conceit and Pharisaical pride. Is not the reproof 
merited ? As a boy he had been taught to regard Protestantism 
as the one religion, and to view Catholic worship with distrust. 
When, later, he came to study the early works of Italian Catholic 
art, and to appreciate their tender, pious beauty, he saw his error. 
His blame is directed at his earlier self as well as at the reader. 

He shows peculiar bitterness in regard to intolerance in 
women. This springs not from scorn of women, — impossible 
in the writer of Queens' Gardens, — but from a high ideal of 
their possible power. That a woman whose charm and authority 
lies in her capabilities of tender compassion, should be compla- 
cently confident of the condemnation of others, — should, while 
unwilling to hurt a fly, rejoice in the thought of " disbelievers " 
agonizing in eternal fire, — this struck him as a sad incongruity, 
a pitiful abjuration of queenship. 

It is characteristic that Ruskin's works were, in the latter part 
of his life, removed from the hands of the regular publishers, 
to whose methods Ruskin objected, and were issued by a printer 
whom Ruskin installed in his own neighborborhood, at Orpington, 
in Kent, England. The work was excellently done, the only dis- 
advantage being that some of the works were high in price, and 
that all were difficult to obtain. Yet this method of independent 
publication has had its influence, as is shown by the work of 
the Kelmscott Press of William Morris in England and of the 
Roycroft publications in America. 



XXXV111 INT ROD UCTION 

Such has been Ruskin's influence, as impressed by his writings 
and his life. And one other lesson may well be reserved for the 
last — his lesson of conscientious craftsmanship, honest delight 
of the workman in his work, the delight of the First Great 
Artificer when he looked upon his handiwork and " saw that 
it was good," the delight of each worthy human artificer in the 
petty fiat of his daily task. It is this principle which is uttered 
in the third lecture in this volume, which underlies the teachings 
of the Lamps of Architecture and the Stones of Venice, and 
which, in his own life, guided Ruskin's own energies. From the 
first patient tracing of the printed letters of the Harry and 
Lucy, through the careful pencilled study of bud and branch 
and peak and cloud, through Jhe patient marshalling of words 
till the perfect message was shaped for the future reader, through 
the watchful, kindly oversight of struggling genius that looked 
to him for help, we find this his rule of life, the spring of action, 
and the source of pleasure. It was this which directed, also, 
humbler acts. It was this which made him wash, with his own 
hands, unclean stairways, which made him take the street-sweep- 
er's broom and clean the muddy crossing, which set him at work, 
himself, with the road-builder's pickaxe, the carpenter's plane, 
or the house-painter's brush. Read, in his biography, the story 
of the Oxford road-making, and you will get insight into the man's 
restless energy and his patient thoroughness. Study the minute 
detail of his architectural drawings and sketches of leaf and root. 
Then — if you think the patience came from a fussy pettiness 
of nature — see his freer drawings of cloud mass or mountain 
majesty. From these two you will get the strangely blended 
elements of his nature — the power that impelled him to do, and 
the laborious patience that insisted upon tender diligence. 

The word " tender," in spite of its hint of sentiment, best 
sums the lesson of Ruskin's whole life and work. Tender, rev- 
erent study of God's world, tender, helpful love for fellow-man, 
tender patience in the well-doing of what lies nearest, tender — 



ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES xxxix 

yes, though the voice be stern with the sense of love's defeat — 
tender reproof of man that forgets he is of the spirit and that 
misses God's proffered inheritance. And in his written word, 
in the bland, pure, soothing music of his prose, there sounds 
the same note of tenderness, the soft pleading of flute and haut- 
boy, the muted softness of the gentler brass, the vibrant passion 
of the reed. It is a music of peace, of all that peace brings 
and of all that makes for peace — beauty and noble-doing and 
tender charity. 



ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES 

In studying these essays, as in the study of any piece of 
writing, the student should make it his first endeavor to get an 
idea of the work as a whole, to perceive the main outlines, to 
comprehend the general structure. In the case of some writers, 
this i& easy. In the case of Ruskin, it is relatively difficult. 
Ruskin's habit of mind is singularly discursive ; the value of his 
writing lies quite as much in incidental ideas which surprise him 
as in his attainment of any end that he sets out to attain. 

The first lecture, Of Kings' Treasuries, has, one might 
say, a compound subject, a major and a minor. The major 
subject, expressed in the title, is the link that unites the first 
lecture with the second. Kings' Treasuries with Queens' Gar- 
dens. The two lectures are to deal with the kingship of men 
and the queenly power of women — to tell how this spiritual 
power — for it is spiritual domination of which the author 
speaks — may be acquired and exercised. The subject of the 
first lecture is consequently this : How may men make them- 
selves spiritual kings among men? The minor subject develops 
the means of attaining such kingship : One derives help 
from noble companionship. The noblest companionship is that 
of great writers, [leading, then, by means of their written 



Xl INTRODUCTION 

words, which offers companionship with these great spirits, is 
the right road to royalty of character. 

It would be unjust to say that Ruskin ever quite loses sight 
of this design. In his deviations into incidental subjects, how- 
ever, he may perplex the reader into losing sight of it. The 
precise explanation of kingship does not occur till the beginning 
of the second lecture ; the end of the first lecture is far off the 
main theme, and whole pages are given to the treatment of 
matters very remotely related to the topic under discussion. 

The line of thought in the first lecture is briefly as follows : 
the Roman numerals representing divisions of the thought, the 
Arabic the sections as numbered by Ruskin : — 

I. (§§ 1-5). Most men desire, next to winning praise, to 
obtain real good for themselves and to do good to 
others. To help them in this, they seek helpful 
friendship. 
II. (§§ 6-12). The most helpful friendship is with the great 
of the past, revealed in their writings. Their society 
is always offered to us if we are willing to understand 
their meaning, and fitted to appreciate it. 
III. (§§ 13-end). We must show our love for them in two 
ways : (A) by trying to understand their meaning — 
by entering into their thoughts, and (B) by trying to 
sympathize with their spirit — by entering into their 
hearts. 

A. (§§ 13-26). We must understand what they 
mean. 

1. (§§ 13-19). We must study their works 

closely, word by word, syllable by syllable 
(which involves being familiar with the 
meanings and history of words). 

2. (§§ 20-24). An examination of some lines 

from Milton will illustrate the right 
method. 



ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES xli 

3. (§§ 25-26). We must try humbly to find 
the writer's meaning, not to judge it ; we 
must read without prejudice. 
B. (§ 27). We must accord with them in spirit. 

1. (§§ 27-29). We must cultivate fineness of 

feeling, as opposed to vulgarity, or coarse 
bluntness of feeling. 

2. (§§ 30-41). The English, as a nation, are 

far from the ideal mood of the reader. 

(a) (§32). We have despised literature. 

(b) (§ 33). We have despised science. 

(c) (§34). We have despised art. 

(d) (§ 35). We have despised nature. 

(e) (§§ 36-40). We have despised com- 
passion. 

3. (§§ 41-42). We must acquire true kingship 

of heart. 

4. (§§ 43-46). Actual kings do not benefit 

their people, but heap up unprofitable 
wealth and useless armament. 

5. (§§ 47-end). Ideal kings would found libra- 

ries, etc., for the good of their people, 
furnishing spiritual food, the true Sesame. 

This plan is coherent and logical, except in the latter part. 
Section 42 does not lead to Section 43, at least leads to it only 
by a superficial associational connection. The real subject in 
Section 42 is the development of self, the attainment of true 
kingship by companionship with the great of the past. The 
word "king," however, leads Ruskin off to discuss the evils of 
misgovernment, a theme that he develops to the end of the 
lecture, without any return, except very indirectly and by 
implication, to the main theme. 

Yet, while there is no logical transition, the result is good, 
for the thought is led from the development of the individual 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

to the development of the nation, and the conclusion has the 
inclusive' largeness of subject that a peroration should have. 
The irregularity lies in the peculiarly subtle method of shifting 
to the new subject, — by mere verbal modulation through the 
word " king," rather than by an overt change of key. The result 
is that the reader is perplexed to discover how he got from one 
topic to the other. 

The most marked irregularity in the working out of this plan is 
the disproportional prominence given to incidental matters. At 
the outset the relative importance given to motives distracts one 
from the main idea. In discussing the importance of close study 
of words, Ruskin, in Sections 16-18, is led off into the quite irrele- 
vant subject of " masked words," and their effect upon history. 
In the analysis of the passage from Milton (20-24), he goes, in 23, 
far from his path to discuss religious conceit and spiritual pride. 

In his denunciation of the English for vulgarity and lack of the 
finer perceptions, Ruskin seems to be carried quite away from the 
recollection of his main subject. Yet this portion of his lecture is 
by no means the least effective. This is his favorite topic, the 
topic toward which, no matter what his subject, we shall find 
him gravitating, — reproach of the world that it fails to esteem 
what it should esteem, and leaves unvalued, unperceived, its 
true treasures. And this grand denunciation (30-40) gives the 
lecture no small part of its prophetic dignity. 

In general, the lecture has unity or oneness in purpose. Its 
whole appeal is for sensitiveness of perception, and, behind 
this, the perception of what is worth while in life. It is the 
kind of address fitted to summon to alertness any stagnating 
on the borders of the slough of Philistinism, to cry to them, 
" Awake, arise, or be forever fallen." 



The second lecture, Of Queens' Gardens , is complementary 
to the first. It points out Ruskin 's ideal of womanhood and 



ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES xliii 

the means by which young women should aim to advance to 
that ideal. The general outline is as follows : — 

I. (§§ 51-53). Statement of the ideal kingship of men and 
queenship of women. 
II. (§§ 54-69). Woman's true place and power in the world. 
She is to be queen of the home, her husband's com- 
panion, uplifting, helping, inspiring. 

1. (§54). Statement of problem. 

2. (§§ 55-62). Examination of the ideal of noble 

womanhood pictured by the world's great 
writers. 

3. (§§ 63-69). Statement of conclusions. 

III. (§§ 70-85). The education of woman. Different from 

man's yet not less accurate. 

1. (§§ 70-71). Physical development, a life of free- 

dom and delight. 

2. (§§ 72-81). Intellectual development, her educa- 

tion and man's. 

3. (§§ 82-85). Imaginative development, sense of 

beauty and wonder in nature. (Digression.) 

IV. (§§ 86-end). Woman's duties in the larger world outside 

the home. 
The conclusion is highly figurative, and, in the beginning of 
Section 95, a trifle superficial in connection, using the word 
" garden " just as " king " was used in the lecture preceding, to 
make a perplexing transition to the concluding theme. 



The third lecture is the most difficult. Its relation to the 
others is in mood rather than in subject. Like them it tries 
to rouse the reader to a sense of the seriousness of life, to sting 
him into shaking off the clogging sense of the commonplace — 
to make liiin feel, in fact, that nothing that is, can be really 
commonplace. It is rather a sermon than a lecture, — a sit- 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

mon not inculcating any theology, but instilling that sense of 
wonder and awe, that aspiration, that dissatisfaction with one's 
self, one's deeds, and one's knowledge, that perception of the im- 
mensity and mystery of all about us, which is the very core and 
vital essence of all religion. This was the centre of Ruskin's 
teaching, and in this lecture we find this in its purest expression. 
The difficulty in studying this lecture is partly owing to this 
subject, indefinite at the best, and leading besides to so many 
related topics that a writer less discursive than Ruskin might 
well be tempted to wander. In fact, so easy is it to stray 
that many readers follow Ruskin through all his divagations 
without the least notion that he is out of the path. This is 
the easier on account of the peculiarity noted above, — the per- 
fect coherence, the smooth, though often superficial connection 
of thought. 

The main theme is this : Unless a man have an awed sense 
of the mystery of life, and a wholesome desire to perform his 
part in life's work industriously and lovingly, there is no hope 
of art. Art must spring, that is, first, from religion, a sense of 
greater than ourselves ; secondly, from a desire to accomplish 
diligently the nearest duty. 

I. (§§ 97-98). Introduction. Statement of the subject 
(though nothing is said as yet about art) in the ques- 
tion, " What is your life ? " with quotation of the verse 
from James expressing this mystery. 
II. (§§ 98-107). The main thesis : Art must have a noble 
motive, must be rooted in a right sense of the mystery 
of life. 

1. (§§ 98-104). The mystery of failure, in other 

lives, in Ruskin's own life. (Digressive discus- 
sion of architecture, art, etc.) 

2. (§§ 105-107). The lesson from this failure. Right- 

ness of art can only be consistent with a right 
understanding of the ends of life. 



ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES xlv 

III. (§§ 108-128). From all sources we learn but two lessons, 

the need of self-discontented aspiration, and the need 
of faithful work. 

1. (§§ 108-109). We care little, as a rule, about 

eternal mysteries. And this carelessness is it- 
self a mystery. 

2. (§§ 110-112). The great religious poets, Dante 

and Milton, can tell us nothing, or will tell us 
nothing. 

3. (§§ 113-115). Homer and Shakespeare offer no 

solution. 

4. (§§ 116-118). Practical men afford none. (Di- 

gression on the silliness of commercial rivalry. 
Subject temporarily forgotten.) 

5. (§§ 119-127). We must learn from the actual 

artists and toilers who do their work well be- 
cause they (a) feel themselves wrong — are 
humble, willing to learn ; and because they (b) 
work with delight and without needless theoriz- 
ing over their work. 

IV. (§§ 129-end). Art, then, depends on helpful action accom- 

plished in the right spirit. As a rule, the world has 
really done little. 

1. (§ 129). Our agriculture has left men unfed. 

2. (§ 130). Our weaving has left men unclad. 

3. (§131). Our building has left men homeless. 

4. (§§ 132-139). We must, then, take up our burden, 

and do the work that is undone — feeding, cloth- 
ing, lodging people, and giving them happiness. 
(1) (§ 136). Feeding. (2) (§ 137). Dressing. 
(3) (§ 138). Lodging. 

5. Such work in such a spirit will prevent spiritual 

conceit and narrowness, and will eduoate in 
true charity. 



xl vi INT ROD UCTION 

The chief difficulty here is that while the chief lessons are 
that art must depend on a right sense of the mystery of life 
and on loving diligent work — while these are the chief lessons, 
yet other and minor topics — Milton's treatment of his theme, 
the commercial view of life, false pride in station, etc. — are 
made misleadingly prominent. Strictly, the fact that life is 
mysterious should have been presented as subordinate. The 
fact that the audience must be roused to recognize the mys- 
tery, excites Ruskin to a treatment in which it assumes a 
prominent place. 

As in the lectures preceding, a large part is made up of 
denunciation of the selfishness of modern, commercialism, and 
of the self-satisfied superficiality of present-day life. And these, 
we must recognize, quite as much as any teaching about art as 
such, give the lecture its value. It is these, too, that join it 
to the other two in a common teaching. All three lectures tell 
men and women of the ideals men and women should set before 
them : how to read and build character under the inspiration 
of the nobility of the past, fitting one's self for such great 
society ; how to develop noble womanhood in women, and, in 
men, ennobling reverence for womanhood ; how to bear one's 
self toward the wonder of life, toward one's work in the world, 
and toward one's duty to others. 

These three lectures are, as has been said, three sermons, — 
lay sermons, and undoctrinal, but sermons none the less, and 
sermons that the world needs to read and take note of. Per- 
haps the world has improved since 1864. It may safely be 
left to the reader to answer whether it has so improved that 
Ruskin's denunciations no longer find a mark. It is safe to 
say that there is no one, young or old, who can read these with- 
out benefit, without feeling an ennobling stimulus, an inciting 
discontent, a new aspiration, a larger citizenship among man- 
kind, a deeper humility before God. 



SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITION xlvii 



SUBJECTS FOR COMPOSITION 

These subjects, while suited for use in themselves, are intended 
chiefly to suggest other similar subjects fitted to the particular 
surroundings and interests of the class. Work of this character 
could be done with most advantage in the third or fourth year 
of the high school. 

1. My favorite book. A description of some book from which 

you have received stimulus and help. 

2. My favorite author. An attempt to make plain the reasons 

for your liking. 

3. The public library vs. private ownership of books. Ad- 

vantages of each. 

4. Object in life. Desire of praise vs. desire to do duty, 

though unpraised. 

5. Tolerance in religion. Its development in the last four 

centuries. 

6. The preservation of beauty in nature. Discussion of local 

problems, — such as that of the preservation of the 
Palisades in New York. 

7. The desirability of free public art-galleries. 

8. Reasons against buying showy but cheap furniture, etc. 

9. Advantages in having one's books in neat, well-printed 

editions. 

10. Fresh-air excursions. Why city children should be taken 

out to see the beauty of the country. 

11. "What I like in Nature." A statement of your personal 

preferences in natural scenery, for mountain, sea, peace- 
ful or wild scenery, with explanation for your preference. 

12. Argument for or against "organized charities." 

13. How a boy or girl can help the poor. 

14. Ruskin's personality, as felt in reading Sesame and Lilies. 

15. The chief lesson that you learn from Sesame and J, Hies. 



xl viii IN TROD UCTION 

16. Ruskin's ideal of woman. How far is it your own? 

17. What should one learn in school and in life besides facts? 

Why? 

18. Ruskin and Carlyle. Contrast their characters and teach- 

ings. 

19. The Pre-Raphaelites. Their work and its influence. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



A. BUSKIN'S WRITINGS 

The following is a list of Ruskin's chief works in the order 
of publication. Minor writings, short articles in magazines, 
etc., have been purposely omitted. The more important writ- 
ings are described briefly, Ruskin's peculiar love for fanciful 
titles making it somewhat difficult to judge of the contents 
from the title-page. 

1834-1846. I. Articles on science and art, under various 
titles, in the Architectural Magazine and the Magazine 
of Natural History. II. Poems in London Monthly 
Miscellany and Friendship's Offering, also the Newdi- 
gate Prize Poem, Salsette and JElephanta, printed sepa- 
rately, also in Oxford Prize Poems. 

1837. The Poetry of Architecture. Discussing the relation 
between architecture and the surrounding landscape. In 
Architectural Magazine. 

1843. Modern Painters. Vol. I. The subsequent parts is- 
sued as follows: 1846, Vol. II. ; 1856, Vols. III. and 
IV.; 1860, Vol. V. The Autograph Edition was pub- 
lished in 1873, and there have been many editions and 
reprints since. Th^re have also been volumes of selec- 
tions, Frondes Agrestes, In Montis Sanctis, and Call 
Fnarrant, the first, miscellaneous selections, the second, 
studies of mountain form, the third, studies in cloud 
xlLx 



1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

form. For the general character of Modern Painters, see 
Introduction. The illustrations, found in all the better 
editions, usually drawn by, or under the direction of, 
Ruskin himself, add greatly to the value. 

1849. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. These seven 
11 lamps " are Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Mem- 
ory, Obedience. The book, that is, deals with the spirit 
in which the architect should work, and the national 
spirit which makes great national architecture possible. 

1850. Poems, by J. R. Containing poems previously men- 
tioned, and others. 

1851. The King of the Golden River. Written in 1841. 
The Stones of Venice. Vol. I. A study of the archi- 
tecture of Venice, applying to a particular case the 
general theories enunciated in The Seven Lamps of 
Architecture. Accompanied in the same year by Ex- 
amples of the Architecture of Venice. Vols. II. and III. 
two years later. 

Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds. A plea 
for church unity, for bringing into unk»n the two folds of 
the Presbyterians and the Established Church of England. 

Pre-Raphaelitism. Discussion of the movement of 
this name. See page xv. 

1853. Stones of Venice. Vols. II. and III. (See above.) 
1853-1860. Giotto and his Works in Padua. A study and 

description suitable for the use of travellers. 

1854. Lectures on Architecture and Painting. 

1856. Modern Painters. Vols. III. and IV. (See above.) 
The Harbors of England. 

1857. The Elements of Drawing. 

The Political Economy of Art. Reprinted under title 
A Joy Forever [and its Price in the Market). 
Education in Art. 
1859. The Two Paths. Lectures on art and its application 



BIBLIOGRAPHY li 

to decoration and manufacture. It contrasts the spirit 
that seeks to represent truly and the spirit of false self- 
content. 

Elements of Perspective. 

1860. Modern Painters. Vol. V. (See above.) 

Unto this Last. Essays on the principles of politi- 
cal economy. Very important in any study of Ruskin's 
teaching. These essays, as first published in this year, 
did not bear this title, but were reprinted under it two 
years later. 

1862-1863. Munera Pulveris. Essays in political economy. 

1865. Sesame and Lilies. First two lectures. 

1866. The Ethics of the Dust. Studies in mineralogy and 
crystallography. 

The Crown of Wild Olive. Three lectures on work, 
traffic, and war. A discussion of principles of political 
economy, and the problems of labor and of war. 

1867. Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne. Twenty-five let- 
ters on questions of political economy and related topics. 

1869. The Queen of the Air. A study of the Greek myths 
of cloud and storm. This, however, like most of Rus- 
kin's writings, passes to the larger questions of life, and 
work, and art. 

1871-1884. Fors Clavigera. A continuation of letters like 
those in Time and Tide, published in pamphlet form 
at sevenpence (later, tenpence) a copy, each number con- 
taining some twenty pages by Ruskin. The name is 
symbolic, almost defying exact explanation. Fors means 
Force, or Fate, and Clavigera means bearing the Key, or 
Club, or Nail, according as the interpretation changes. 
The third Fors, indeed, is simply Fortune. The object of 
the whole is to present to men, didactically, thoughts 
upon the problems of lite, to rouse and to inspire. The 
book is varied in style, Carlylean denunciation mingling 



Hi BIBLIOGRAPHY 

with tender idealism and sparkling wit. It is, in many 
respects, revolutionary, attacking commercialism as the 
root of all modern evils, and its appearance raised no 
little outcry. 

1870-1872. Aratra Pentelici. Six lectures on elements of 
sculpture. Univ. of Oxford. 

The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret. 
The Eagle's Nest. The relation of natural science to 
art. 

1873. Love's Meinie. Parts I. and II. Part III. was issued 
in 1881. Lessons on Greek and English birds. 

Ariadne Florentina. Six lectures on wood and metal 
engraving. 

1873-1874. Val d'Arno. Ten lectures, the Tuscan art di- 
rectly antecedent to the Florentine year of victories. 

1875-1877. Mornings in Florence. A guide to the tourist. 

1875-1886. Proserpina. Studies of wayside flowers, taking up 
character of leaf, stem, and seed, with discussion of several 
common flowers. 

1875-1878. Deucalion. Collected studies on the lapse of 
waves and life of stones. 

1877-1884. St. Mark's Rest. " The history of Venice written 
for the help of the few travellers who still care for her 
mountains." 

1877-1878. The Laws of Fesole. A familiar treatise on the 
elementary principles and practice of drawing and paint- 
ing, as determined by the Tuscan masters. 

1880. Elements of English Prosody. 

Arrows of the Chace. Various letters to newspapers 
on various subjects, collected and edited by A. D. 0. 
Wedderburn. 

1880-1885. The Bible of Amiens, or Our Fathers have told 
Us. " Sketches of the history of Christianity for boys 
and girls who have been held at its fonts." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY lili 

1883. The Art of England. Lectures in Oxford. These deal 
with Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Holman, Hunt, Alma-Tadema, 
and other representative English artists. 

1884. The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century. 

1884-1885. The Pleasures of England. Lectures in Ox- 
ford. The " Pleasures " are the pleasures of Learning, of 
Faith, and of Deed. They are treated in relation to early- 
English history. 

1885. On the Old Road. Collected magazine articles from 
various sources, consisting largely of early work. 

Praeterita. A beginning of an autobiography or, more 
strictly, autobiographic notes, giving a charging view into 
the life and nature of the writer. (It is one of the best of 
autobiographical records, with something of the innocent 
egotism of Pepys.) 

1886. Dilecta. Correspondence and other material illustra- 
tive of Praeterita. 

Hortus Inclusus. The inclosed garden. Letters to two 
young ladies, collected and edited. 

1890. Ruskiana. Collected letters. 

1891. The Poems of John Ruskin. 



B. WRITINGS ABOUT RUSKIN 

Among the best biographies of Ruskin are the following: 
The Life of John Ruskin, by W. G. Collingwood (Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co.) ; John Buskin, M. H. Spielmann (Lippincott & 
Co.); John Buskin, his Life and Teaching, Mather (Warne 
& Co.) ; Ruskin et la Religion de la Beaut e, Robert de la 
Sizeranne (Hachette et Cie.); John Ruskin, Aspects of his 
Thought and, Teaching, Baillie ; Work of John Ruskin, Charles 
Waldstein (Harper and Brothers). Ruskin is discussed also in 
Modern Humanists, John M. Robertson (Swan Sonnenschein 



liv BIBLIOGRAPHY 

& Co.) — a most excellent criticism. W. Hamilton's ^Esthetic 
Movement in Fug land casts a good deal of rather distorted light 
on the Pre-Raphaelites, while biographies of D. G. Rossetti, 
and others of Ruskin's group, bring Ruskin in as an accessory 
figure. Very useful, of course, are the Prceterita, Ruskin's 
autobiographical reminiscence, the Dilecta, and other collections 
of letters and biographical material. 

In the periodicals, especially in the year 1900, there have 
appeared a great many articles upon Ruskin and his work. 
For these the student should consult Poole's Index to Periodi- 
cal Literature. The following may be of especial interest. 
(The numeral indicates the volume of the magazine. For the 
page, see magazine index.) 

Biography : — Ruskin and his Home (National Magazine, 
7) ; John Ruskin, W. H. Winslow (New England Magazine, 
New Series, 21); John Ruskin at Home (Academy 56, Book- 
Bityer, 10). 

Art Criticism : — Ruskin as Artist, M. H. Spielmann (Scrib- 
ner's Magazine, 24) ; Ruskin, Rossetti, and Pre-Raphaelitism, 
M. S. Anderson (Dial, 26) ; Ruskin as Art Teacher, W. G-. 
Kingsland (Poet- Lore, 5). 

Political Economy : — Lessons from Ruskin, C. S. Devas 
(Economic Journal, 8) ; Ruskin Cooperative Colony, N. H. 
Casson (Independent, 51) ; Ruskin as Political Economist, 
W. J. Lhamon (Canadian Magazine, 8) ; Ruskin as a Prac- 
tical Teacher, Kaufman (Scottish Review, 24) \ Ruskin in 
Relation to Modern Problems (National Review, 22) ; Rus- 
kin y s Influence on English Social Thought (New England 
Magazine, New Series, 9) ; John Ruskin as Economist, Pat- 
rick Geddes (International Monthly, 1). 

As a Writer : — Ruskin as Oxford Lecturer, J. M. Bruce 
(Century, 33) ; Ruskin as Writer, M. H. Spielmann (Book- 
Buyer, 19); Ruskin as Master of Prose, Frederic Harri- 
son (Century, 38); Titles of Ruskin's Books, Mrs. E. T. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY lv 

Cook (Good Words, 34) ; Buskin'' s Writings, Saintsbury 
(Critic, 25). 



RUSKIN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881. 

J. M. W. Turner (painter), 1775-1851. 

Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892. 

Robert Browning, 1812-1889. 

John Ruskin, 1819-1 900. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828-1882. 

William Morris, 1834-1890. 

Algernon C. Swinburne, 1837- 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1882 



1. The present edition of "Sesame and Lilies," issued at 
the request of an aged friend, is reprinted without change of a 
word from the first small edition of the book, withdrawing only 
the irrelevant preface respecting tours in the Alps, which how- 
ever, if the reader care to see, he will find placed with more pro- 
priety in the second volume of " Deucalion." The third lecture, 
added in the first volume of the large edition of my works, and 
the gossiping introduction prefixed to that edition, are with- 
drawn also, not as irrelevant, but as following the subject too 
far, and disturbing the simplicity in which the two original 
lectures dwell on their several themes, — the majesty of the 
influence of good books, and of good women, if we know how 
to read them, and how to honor. 

2. I might just as well have said, the influence of good men, 
and good women, since the best strength of a man is shown in 
his intellectual work, as that of a women in her daily deed and 
character ; and I am somewhat tempted to involve myself in 
the debate which might be imagined in illustrating these rela- 
tions of their several powers, because only the other day one of 
my friends put me in no small pet° by saying that he thought 
my own influence was much more in being amiable and obliging 
than in writing books. Admitting for argument's sake, the 
amiableness and obligingness, I begged him, with some warmth, 
to observe that there were myriads of at least equally good- 
natured people in the world who had merely become its slaves, 
if not its victims, but that the influence of my books was 



II PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1882 

distinctly on the increase, and I hoped — etc., etc., — it is no 
matter what more I said, or intimated ; but it much matters that 
the young reader of the following essays should be confirmed in 
the assurance on which all their pleading depends, that there is 
such a thing as essential good, and as essential evil, in books, 
in art, and in character ; — that this essential goodness and 
badness are independent of epochs, fashions, opinions, or revo- 
lutions ; and the present extremely active and ingenious genera- 
tion of young people, in thanking Providence for the advantages 
it has granted them in the possession of steam whistles and 
bicycles, need not hope materially to add to the laws of beauty 
in sound or grace in motion, which were acknowledged in the 
days of Orpheus, and Camilla. 

3. But I am brought to more serious pause than I had 
anticipated in putting final accent on the main sentences in 
this — already, as men now count time, old — book of mine, 
because since it was written, not only these untried instru- 
ments ° of action, but many equally novel methods of education 
and systems of morality have come into vogue, not without a 
certain measure of prospective good in them ; — college educa- 
tion for women, — out-of-college education ° for men : positiv- 
ism ° with its religion of humanity, and negativism ° with its 
religion of Chaos, and the like, from the entanglement of which 
no young people can now escape, if they would ; together with 
a mass of realistic, or materialistic literature and art, founded 
mainly on the theory of nobody's having any will, or needing 
any master ; and much of it extremely clever, irresistibly amus- 
ing, and enticingly pathetic ; but which is all nevertheless the 
mere whirr and dust-cloud of a dissolutely ° reforming and vul- 
garly manufacturing age, which when its dissolutions are 
appeased, and its manufactures purified, must return in due 
time to the understanding of things that have been, and are, 
and shall be hereafter, though for the present concerned seri- 
ously with nothing beyond its dinner and its bed. 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1882 III 

4. I must therefore, for honesty's sake, no less than intel- 
ligibility's, warn the reader of " Sesame and Lilies " that the 
book is wholly of the old school ; that it ignores, without con- 
tention or regret, the ferment of surrounding elements, and 
assumes for perennial some old-fashioned conditions and exist- 
ences which the philosophy of to-day imagines to be extinct 
with the Mammoth ° and the Dodo.° 

5. Thus the second lecture, in its very title, " Queens' Gar- 
dens," takes for granted the persistency of Queenship, and there- 
fore of Kingship, and therefore of Courtliness or Courtesy, and 
therefore of Uncourtliness or Rusticity. It assumes, with the 
ideas of higher and lower rank, those of serene authority and 
happy submission ; of Riches and Poverty without dispute for 
their rights, and of Virtue and Vice without confusion of their 
natures. 

6. And farther, it must be premised that the book is chiefly 
written for young people belonging to the upper, or undistressed 
middle, classes ■ who may be supposed to have choice of the 
objects and command of the industries of their life. It assumes 
that many of them will be called to occupy responsible posi- 
tions in the world, and that they have leisure in preparation 
for these, to play tennis or read Plato. 

7. Therefore also — that they have Plato to read if they 
choose, with lawns on which they may run, and woods in 
which they may muse. It supposes their father's library to 
be open to them, and to contain all that is necessary for 
their intellectual progress, without the smallest dependence on 
monthly parcels ° from town. 

8. These presupposed conditions are not extravagant in a 
country that boasts of its wealth, and which, without boasting, 
still presents in the greater number of its landed households, 
the most perfect types of grace and peace which can be found 
in Europe. 

9. I have only to add farther, respecting the book, that it 



IV PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1882 

was written while my energies were still unbroken and my tem- 
per unfettered ; and that, if read in connection with " Unto this 
Last," it contains the chief truths I have endeavored through 
all my past life to display, and which, under the warnings I 
have received to prepare for its close, I am chiefly thankful to 
have learnt and taught. 

Avallon, Aug. 24th, 1882. 



SESAME AND LILIES 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 



I. Being now fifty-one years old, and little likely to change 
my mind hereafter on any important subject of thought (unless 
through weakness of age), I wish to publish a connected series 
of such parts of my works as now seem to me right, and likely 
to be of permanent use. In doing so I shall omit much, but 
not attempt to mend what I think worth reprinting. A young 
man necessarily writes otherwise than an old one, and it would 
be worse than wasted time to try to recast the juvenile language ; 
nor is it to be thought that I am ashamed even of what I can- 
cel, for a great part of my earlier work was rapidly written for 
temporary purposes, and is now unnecessary, though true, even 
to truism. What I wrote about religion was, on the contrary, 
painstaking, and, I think, forcible, as compared with most reli- 
gious writing, especially in its frankness and fearlessness ; but 
it was wholly mistaken, for I had been educated in the doctrines 
of a narrow sect, and had read history as obliquely as sectarians 
necessarily must. 

Mingled among these either unnecessary or erroneous state- 
ments, I find, indeed, some that might be still of value ; but 
these, in my earlier books, disfigured by affected language, 
partly through the desire to be thought a fine writer, and 
partly, as in the second volume of " Modern Painters," ° in the 



VI PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

notion of returning as far as I could to what I thought the 
better style of old English literature, especially to that of my 
then favorite in prose, Richard Hooker. 1 

********* 

III. The first book of which a new edition is required 
chances to be " Sesame and Lilies.'' ... I am glad that it 
should be the first of the complete series, for many reasons, 
though in now looking over these lectures, I am painfully struck 
by the waste of good work in them. They cost me much 
thought and much strong emotion ; but it was foolish to sup- 
pose that I could rouse my audiences in a little while to any 
sympathy with the temper into which I had brought myself by 
years of thinking over subjects full of pain ; while, if I miss 
my purpose at the time, it was little to be hoped I could attain 
it afterwards, since phrases written for oral delivery become in- 
effective when quietly read. Yet I should only take away what 
good is in them if I tried to translate them into the language 
of books ; ° nor, indeed, could I at all have done so at the time 
of their delivery, my thoughts then habitually and impatiently 
putting themselves into forms fit only for emphatic speech. 
And thus I am startled, in my review of them, to find that 
though there is much (forgive me the impertinence) which seems 
to me accurately and energetically said, there is scarcely any- 
thing put in a form to be generally convincing, or even easily 
intelligible : and I can well imagine a reader laying down the 
book without being at all moved by it, still less guided, to any 
definite course of action. 

I think, however, if I now say briefly and clearly what I 
meant my hearers to understand, and what I wanted and still 
would fain have them to do, there may afterwards be found some 
better service in the passionately written text. 

1 Here Raskin goes on to speak of writings not included in this 
edition. This passage is consequently omitted. — Ed. 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 VII 

IV. The first lecture says,° or tries to say, that life being 
very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste 
none of them in reading valueless books; and that valuable 
books should, in a civilized country, be within the reach of 
every one, printed in excellent form, for a just price, but not in 
any vile, vulgar, or, by reason of smallness of type, physically 
injurious form, at a vile price. For we none of us need many 
books, and those which we need ought to be clearly printed, on 
the best paper, and strongly bound. And though we are indeed 
now a wretched and poverty-struck nation, and hardly able to 
keep soul and body together, still, as no person in decent circum- 
stances would put on his table confessedly bad wine, or bad 
meat, without being ashamed, so he need not have on his 
shelves ill-printed or loosely and wretchedly stitched books ; 
for though few can be rich, yet every man who honestly exerts 
himself may, I think, still provide, for himself and his family, 
good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart or carriage 
horses, and stout leather binding for his books. And I would 
urge upon every young man, as the beginning of his due and 
wise provision for his household, to obtain as soon as he can, by 
the severest economy, a restricted, serviceable, and steadily — 
however slowly — increasing series of books for use through 
life, — making his little library, of all the furniture in his room, 
the most studied and decorative piece, every volume having its 
assigned place, like a little statue in its niche, and one of the 
earliest and strictest lessons to the children of the house being 
how to turn the pages of their own literary possessions lightly 
and deliberately, with no chance of tearing or dogs' ears. 

V. That is my notion of the founding of Kings' Treasuries ; 
and the first lecture is intended to show somewhat the use and 
preciousness of their treasures ; but the two following ones have 
wider scope, being written in the hope of awakening the youth 
of England, so far as my poor words might have any power 
with them, to take some thought of the purposes of the life 




VIII PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

into which they are entering, and the nature of the world they 
have to conquer. 

VI. These two lectures are fragmentary and ill-arranged, 
but not, I think, diffuse or much compressible. The entire 
gist and conclusion of them, however, is in the last six para- 
graphs, 135 to the end, of the third lecture, which I would 
beg the reader to look over, not once or twice (rather than any 
other part of the book), for they contain the best expression I 
have yet been able to put in words of what, so far as is within 
my power, I mean henceforward both to do myself, and to plead 
with all over whom I have any influence, to do also, according 
to their means, — the letters begun on the first day of this 
year, 1 to the workmen of England, having the object of origi- 
nating, if possible, this movement among them, in true alliance 
with whatever trustworthy element of help they can find in the 
higher classes. After these paragraphs, let me ask you to read, 
by the fiery light of recent events, the fable given at §117, and 
then §§ 129-131, and observe, my statement respecting the 
famine of Orissa is not rhetorical, but certified by official docu- 
ments as within the truth. Five hundred thousand persons, 
at least, died by starvation in our British dominions, wholly 
in consequence of carelessness and want of forethought. Keep 
that well in your memory, and note it as the best possible illus- 
tration of modern political economy in true practice, and of the 
relations it has accomplished between Supply and Demand. 
Then begin the second lecture, and all will read clear enough, 
I think, to the end ; only, since that second lecture was written, 
questions have arisen respecting the education and claims of 
women which have greatly troubled simple minds and excited 
restless ones. I am sometimes asked my thoughts on this mat- 
ter, and I suppose that some girl readers of the second lecture 
may at the end of it desire to be told summarily what I would 

1 " Fors Clavigera," begun in 1871. 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 187 1 IX 

have them do and desire in the present state of things. This ; 
then, is what I would say to any girl who had confidence enough 
in me to believe what I told her, or do what I asked her. 

VII. First, be quite sure of one thing, that, however much 
you may know, and whatever advantages you may possess, and 
however good you may be, you have not been singled out° by the 
God who made you from all the other girls in the world, to be 
especially informed respecting His own nature and character. 
You have not been born in a luminous point upon the surface 
of the globe, where a perfect theology might be expounded to 
you from your youth up, and where everything you were taught 
would be true, and everything that was enforced upon you, 
right. Of all the insolent, all the foolish persuasions that by 
any chance could enter and hold your empty little heart, this 
is the proudest and foolishest, — that you have been so much 
the darling of the Heavens and favorite of the Fates as to be 
born in the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, when 
and where pure Divine truth had been sifted from the errors 
of the nations; and that your papa had been providentially 
disposed to buy a house in the convenient neighborhood of the 
steeple under which that Immaculate and final verity would 
be beautifully proclaimed. Do not think it, child ; it is not 
so. This, on the contrary, is the fact, — unpleasant you may 
think it ; pleasant, it seems to me, — that you, with all your 
pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly thoughts, and saintly 
aspirations, are not one whit more thought of or loved by the 
great Maker and Master than any poor little red, black, or blue 
savage, running wild in the pestilent woods, or naked on the hot 
sands of the earth ; and that of the two, you probably know 
less about God than she does ; the only difference being that 
she thinks little of Him that is right, and you, much that is 
wrong. 

That, then, is the first thing to make sure of ; — that you 
are not yet perfectly well informed on the most abstruse of all 



X PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

possible subjects, and that if you care to behave with modesty 
or propriety, you had better be silent about it. 

VIII. The second thing which you may make sure of is, 
that however good you may be, you have faults ; that however 
dull you may be, you can find out what some of them are ; and 
that however slight they may be, you had better make some — 
not too painful, but patient — effort to get quit of them. And 
so far as you have confidence in me at all, trust me for this, 
that how many soever you may find or fancy your faults to be, 
there are only two that are of real consequence, — Idleness and 
Cruelty. Perhaps you may be proud. Well, we can get much 
good out of pride, if only it be not religious. Perhaps you may 
be vain, — it is highly probable, and very pleasant for the peo- 
ple who like to praise you. Perhaps you are a little envious, 
— that is really very shocking; but then — so is everybody 
else. Perhaps, also, you are a little malicious, which I am 
truly concerned to hear, but should probably only the more, if I 
knew you, enjoy your conversation. But whatever else you 
may be, you must not be useless, and you must not be cruel. 
If there is any one point which, in six thousand years of think- 
ing about right and wrong, wise and good men have agreed 
upon, or successively by experience discovered, it is that God 
dislikes idle and cruel people more than any others ; — that His 
first order is, " Work while you have light ; " ° and His second, 
" Be merciful while you have mercy." ° 

" Work while you have light," especially while you have the 
light of morning. There are few things more wonderful to me 
than that old people never tell young ones how precious their 
youth is. They sometimes sentimentally regret their own ear- 
lier days, sometimes prudently forget them, often foolishly 
rebuke the young, often more foolishly indulge, often most fool- 
ishly thwart and restrain, but scarcely ever warn or watch 
them. Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you that 
the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XI 

in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days 
now. They are not to be sad days, — far from that, the first 
duty of young people is to be delighted and delightful ; but 
they are to be in the deepest sense solemn days. There is no 
solemnity so deep, to a rightly thinking creature, as that of 
dawn. But not only in that beautiful sense, but in all their 
character and' method, they are to be solemn days. Take your 
Latin dictionary, and look out "solennis," and fix the sense 
of the word well in your mind, and remember that every day 
of your early life is ordaining irrevocably, for good or evil, the 
custom and practice of your soul, — ordaining either sacred cus- 
toms of dear and lovely recurrence, or trenching deeper and 
deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow. Now, therefore, see 
that no day passes in which you do not make yourself a some- 
what better creature ; and in order to do that, find out, first, 
what you are now. Do not think vaguely about it ; take pen 
and paper, and write down as accurate a description of yourself 
as you can, with the date to it. If you dare not do so, find 
out why you dare not, and try to get strength of heart enough 
to look yourself fairly in the face, in mind as well as body. I 
do not doubt but that the mind is a less pleasant thing to look 
at than the face, and for that very reason it needs more looking 
at ; so always have two mirrors ° on your toilet-table, and see 
that with proper care you dress body and mind before them 
daily. After the dressing is once over for the day, think no 
more about it : as your hair will blow about your ears, so 
your temper and thoughts will get ruffled with the day's work, 
and may need, sometimes, twice dressing ; but I don't want you 
to carry about a mental pocket-comb, only to be smooth 
braided ° always in the morning. 

IX. Write down, then, frankly, what you are, or at least 
what you think yourself, not dwelling upon those inevitable 
faults which I have just told you are of little consequence, and 
which the action of a right life will shake or smooth away ; but 



xii Preface to edition of 1S71 

that you may determine to the best of your intelligence what 
you are good for, and can be made into. You will find that 
the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help 
other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve 
yourself. Thus, from the beginning, consider all your accom- 
plishments as means of assistance to others ; read attentively, 
in this volume, paragraphs 74, 75, 19, and 79, and you will 
understand what I mean, with respect to languages and music. 
In music especially you will soon find what personal benefit 
there is in being serviceable : it is probable that, however 
limited your powers, you have voice and ear enough to sustain 
a note of moderate compass in a concerted piece ; — that, then, 
is the first thing to make sure you can do. Get your voice dis- 
ciplined and clear, and think only of accuracy, never of effect 
or expression : if you have any soul worth expressing, it will 
show itself in your singing ; but most likely there are very few 
feelings in you, at present, needing any particular expression, and 
the one thing you have to do is to make a clear-voiced little 
instrument ° of yourself, which other people can entirely depend 
upon for the note wanted. So, in drawing, as soon as you can 
set down the right shape of anything, and thereby explain its 
character to another person, or make the look of it clear and 
interesting to a child, you will begin to enjoy the art vividly 
for its own sake, and all your habits of mind and powers of 
memory will gain precision ; but if you only try to make showy 
drawings for praise, or pretty ones for amusement, your drawing 
will have little of real interest for you, and no educational power 
whatever. 

Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do every 
day some that is useful in the vulgar sense. Learn first 
thoroughly the economy of the kitchen, — the good and bad 
qualities of every common article of food, and the simplest and 
best modes of their preparation ; when you have time, go and 
help in the cooking of poorer families, and show them how to 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XIII 

make as much of everything as possible, and how to make little, 
nice ; — coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty ways, 
and pleading for well-folded table-cloths, however coarse, and 
for a flower or two out of the garden to strew on them. If you 
manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright plates on it, and a 
good dish in the middle, of your own cooking, you may ask 
leave to say a short grace ; and let your religious ministries be 
confined to that much for the present. 

X. Again, let a certain part of your day (as little as you 
choose, but not to be broken in upon) be set apart for making 
strong and pretty dresses for the poor. Learn the sound quali- 
ties of all useful stuffs, and make everything of the best you 
can get, whatever its price. I have many reasons for desiring 
you to do this, — too many to be told just now ; — trust me, and 
be sure you get everything as good as can be. And if in the 
villanous state of modern trade, you cannot get it good at any 
price, buy its raw material, and set some of the poor women 
about you to spin and weave, till you have got stuff that can 
be trusted ; and then, every day, make some little piece of use- 
ful clothing, sewn with your own fingers as strongly as it can 
be stitched ; and embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately 
with fine needlework, such as a girl may be proud of having 
done. And accumulate these things by you until you hear of 
some honest persons in need of clothing, which may often too 
sorrowfully be ; and even though you should be deceived, and 
give them to the dishonest, and hear of their being at once 
taken to the pawnbroker's, never mind that, for the pawn- 
broker must sell them to some one who has need of them. 
That is no business of yours ; what concerns you is only that 
when you see a half-naked child, you should have good and 
fresh clothes to give it, if its parents will let it be taught to 
wear them. If they will not, consider how they came to be of 
such a mind, which it will be wholesome for you beyond most 
subjects of inquiry to ascertain. And after you have gone on 



XIV PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

doing this a little while, you will begin to understand the mean- 
ing of at least one chapter of your Bible, — Proverbs xxxi.,° — 
without need of any labored comment, sermon, or meditation. 

XI. In these, then (and of course in all minor ways besides, 
that you can discover in your own household), you must be to 
the best of your strength usefully employed during the greater 
part of the day, so that you may be able at the end of it to say 
as proudly as any peasant that you have not eaten the bread 
of idleness. 

Then, secondly, I said you are not to be cruel. Perhaps 
you think there is no chance of your being so, and indeed I hope 
it is not likely that you should be deliberately unkind to any 
creature ; but unless you are deliberately kind to every creature, 
you will often be cruel to many. Cruel, partly through want of 
imagination (a far rarer and weaker faculty in women than men), 
and yet more, at the present day, through the subtle encourage- 
ment of your selfishness by the religious doctrine that all which 
we now suppose to be evil will be brought to a good end, — 
doctrine practically issuing, not in less earnest efforts that the 
immediate unpleasantness may be averted from ourselves, but 
in our remaining satisfied in the contemplation of its ultimate 
objects, when it is inflicted on others. 

It is not likely that the more accurate methods of recent 
mental education will now long permit young people to grow 
up in the persuasion that in any danger or distress they may 
expect to be themselves saved by the providence of God, while 
those around them are lost by His improvidence ; but they may 
be yet long restrained from rightly kind action, and long accus- 
tomed to endure both their own pain occasionally, and the pain 
of others always, with an unwise patience, by misconception of 
the eternal and incurable nature of real evil. Observe, there- 
fore, carefully in this matter : there are degrees of pain, as 
degrees of faultfulness, which are altogether conquerable, and 
which seem to be merely forms of wholesome trial or discipline. 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XV 

Your fingers tingle when you go out on a frosty morning, and 
are all the warmer afterwards ; your limbs are weary with whole- 
some work, and lie down in the pleasanter rest ; you are tried 
for a little while by having to wait for some promised good, 
and it is all the sweeter when it comes. But you cannot carry 
the trial past a certain point. Let the cold fasten on your 
hand in an extreme degree, and your ringers will moulder from 
their sockets. Fatigue yourself, but once, to utter exhaustion, 
and to the end of life you shall not recover the former vigor of 
your frame. Let heart-sickness pass beyond a certain bitter 
point, and the heart loses its life forever. 

Now, the very definition of evil is in this irremediableness. 
It means sorrow, or sin, which end in death ; and assuredly, as 
far as we know, or can conceive, there are many conditions both 
of pain and sin which cannot but so end. Of course we are 
ignorant and blind creatures, and we cannot know what seeds 
of good may be in present suffering, or present crime ; but with 
what we cannot know, we are not concerned. It is conceivable 
that murderers and liars may in some distant world be exalted 
into a higher humanity than they could have reached without 
homicide or falsehood ; but the contingency is not one by which 
our actions should be guided. There is indeed a better hope 
that the beggar who lies at our gates in misery, may, within 
gates of pearl, be comforted ; but the Master, whose words are 
our only authority for thinking so, never Himself inflicted dis- 
ease as a blessing, nor sent away the hungry unfed, or the 
wounded unhealed. 

XII. Believe me then, the only right principle of action 
here, is to consider good and evil as defined by our natural 
sense of both, and to strive to promote the one, and to conquer 
the other, with as hearty endeavor as if there were, indeed, no 
other world than this. Above all, get quit of the absurd idea 
that Heaven will interfere to correct great errors, while allow- 
ing its laws to take their course in punishing small ones. If 



XVI PBEFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

you prepare a dish of food carelessly, you do not expect Provi- 
dence to make it palatable ; neither if through years of folly 
you misguide your own life, need you expect Divine inter- 
ference to bring round everything at last for the best. I tell 
you positively, the world is not so constituted : the consequences 
of great mistakes are just as sure as those of small ones, and 
the happiness of your whole life, and of all the lives over which 
you have power, depends as literally on your own common-sense 
and discretion as the excellence and order of the feast of a 
day. 

XIII. Think carefully and bravely over these things, and 
you will find them true ; having found them so, think also 
carefully over your own position in life. I assume that you 
belong to the middle or upper classes, and that you would 
shrink from descending into a lower sphere. You may fancy 
you would not, — nay, if you are very good, strong-hearted, 
and romantic, perhaps you really would not; but it is not 
wrong that you should. You have, then, I suppose, good 
food, pretty rooms to live in, pretty dresses to wear, power of 
obtaining every rational and wholesome pleasure : you are more- 
over, probably gentle and grateful, and in the habit of every 
day thanking God for these things. But why do you thank 
Him ? Is it because, in these matters, as well as in your reli- 
gious knowledge, you think He has made a favorite of you? 
Is the essential meaning of your thanksgiving, " Lord, I thank 
thee° that I am not as other girls are, not in that I fast twice 
in the week while they feast, but in that I feast seven times a 
week, while they fast " ? And are you quite sure this is a pleas- 
ing form of thanksgiving to your Heavenly Father 1 Suppose 
you saw one of your own true earthly sisters, Lucy or Emily, 
cast out of your mortal father's house, starving, helpless, heart- 
broken ; and that every morning when you went into your 
father's room, you said to him, " How good you are, father, 
to give me what you don't give Lucy ! " ° are you sure that, what- 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XVU 

ever anger your parent might have just cause for, against your 
sister, he would be pleased by that thanksgiving, or flattered 
by that praise ? Nay, are you even sure that you are so much 
the favorite ? — suppose that all this while he loves poor Lucy 
just as well as you, and is only trying you through her pain, 
and perhaps not angry with her in anywise, but deeply angry 
with you, and all the more for your thanksgivings ? Would it 
not be well that you should think, and earnestly too, over this 
standing of yours ; and all the more if you wish to believe that 
text, which clergymen so much dislike preaching on,° " How 
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of 
God " ? ° You do not believe it now, or you would be less com- 
placent in your state ; — and you cannot believe it at all, until 
you know that the Kingdom of God means, — " not meat and 
drink, but justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," nor until 
you know also that such joy is not by any means, necessarily, 
in going to church, or in singing hymns, but may be joy in a 
dance, or joy in a jest,° or joy in anything you have deserved 
to possess, or that you are willing to give ; but joy in nothing 
that separates you, as by any strange favor, from your fellow- 
creatures, that exalts you through their degradation, — exempts 
you from their toil, — or indulges you in time of their distress. 
XIV. Think, then, and some day, I believe, you will feel 
also, — no morbid passion of pity such as would turn you into 
a black Sister of Charity, but the steady fire of perpetual kind- 
ness, which will make you a bright one. I speak in no dispar- 
agement of them. I know well how good the Sisters of Charity 
are, and how much we owe to them ; but all these professional 
pieties (except so far as distinction or association may be nec- 
essary for effectiveness of work) are in their spirit wrong, and 
in practice merely plaster the sores of disease that ought never 
have been permitted to exist, — encouraging at the same time 
the herd of less excellent women in frivolity, by leading then 
to think that they must either be good up to the black stand- 



XVIII PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

ard, or cannot be good for anything. Wear a costume, by all 
means, if you like ; but let it be a cheerful and becoming one ; 
and be in your heart a Sister of Charity always, without either 
veiled or voluble declaration of it. 

XV. As I pause, before ending my preface, — thinking of 
one or two more points that are difficult to write of, — I find 
a letter in " The Times," from a French lady, which says all I 
want so beautifully that I will print it just as it stands : — 



Sir. — It is often said that one example is worth many sermons. 
Shall I be judged presumptuous if I point out one which seems to 
me so striking just now that, however painful, I cannot help dwell- 
ing upon it ? 

It is the share, the sad and large share, that French society and 
its recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, of indulgence in 
every kind of extravagant dissipation, has to lay to its own door 
in its actual crisis of ruin, misery and humiliation. If our mena- 
g$res° can be cited as an example to English housewives, so, alas ! 
can other classes of our society be set up as an example — not to 
be followed. 

Bitter must be the feelings of many a Frenchwoman whose days 
of luxury and expensive habits are at an end, and whose bills of 
bygone splendor lie with a heavy weight on her conscience, if not 
on her purse ! 

With us the evil has spread high and low. Everywhere have 
the examples given by the highest ladies in the land been followed 
but too successfully. Every year did dress become more extrava- 
gant, entertainments more costly, expenses of every kind more 
considerable. Lower and lower became the tone of society, its 
good-breeding, its delicacy. More and more were monde and 
demi-monde associated in newspaper accounts of fashionable do- 
ings, in scandalous gossip, on race-courses, in premieres representa- 
tions, in imitation of each other's costumes, mobiliers, and slang. 

Living beyond one's means became habitual — almost necessary 
— for every one to keep up with, if not to go beyond, every one 
else. 

What the result of all this has been we now r see in the wreck of 
our prosperity, in the downfall of all that seemed brightest and 
highest 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XIX 

Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my own country has 
incurred and is suffering, I cannot help feeling sorrowful when I 
see in England signs of our besetting sins appearing also. Paint 
and chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing "Anonymas" by 
name, and reading doubtfully moral novels, are in themselves 
small offences, although not many years ago they would have 
appeared very heinous ones, yet they are quick and tempting con- 
veyances on a very dangerous high-road. 

I would that all English women knew how they are looked up 
to from abroad, — what a high opinion, what honor and reverence 
we foreigners have for their principles, their truthfulness, the fresh 
and pure innocence of their daughters, the healthy youthfulness of 
their lovely children. 

May I illustrate this by a short example which happened very 
near me ? During the days of the emeutes of 1848, all the houses 
in Paris were being searched for fire-arms by the mob. The one I 
was living in contained none, as the master of the house repeatedly 
assured the furious and incredulous Republicans. They were going 
to lay violent hands on him, when his wife, an English lady, hear- 
ing the loud discussion, came bravely forward and assured them 
that no arms were concealed. " Vous etes anglaise, nous vous 
croyons ; les anglaises disent toujours la ve'rite'," ° was the immedi- 
ate answer ; and the rioters quietly left. 

Now, Sir, shall I be accused of unjustified criticism, if, loving 
and admiring your country, as these lines will prove, certain new 
features strike me as painful discrepancies in English life ? 

Far be it from me to preach the contempt of all that can make 
life lovable and wholesomely pleasant. I love nothing better than 
to see a woman nice, neat, elegant, looking her best in the prettiest 
dress that her taste and purse can afford, or your bright, fresh 
young girls fearlessly and perfectly sitting their horses, or adorn- 
ing their houses as pretty [s£c;° it is not quite grammar, but it is 
better than if it were] as care, trouble, and refinement can make 
them. 

It is the degree beyond that which to us has proved so fatal, and 
that I would our example could warn you from, as a small repay- 
ment for your hospitality and friendliness to us in our days of 
trouble. 

May English women accept this in a kindly spirit as a new- 
year's wish from 

A French Lady, 

December 29. 



XX PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

That, then, is the substance of what I would fain say con- 
vincingly, if it might be. to my girl friends : at all events with 
certainty in my own mind that I was thus far a safe guide to 
them. 

XVI. For other and older readers it is needful I should 
write a few words more, respecting what opportunity I have 
had to judge, or right I have to speak, of such things ; for in- 
deed too much of what I have said about women has been said 
in faith only. A wise and lovely English lady told me, when 
" Sesame and Lilies "' first appeared, that she was sure the 
" Sesame " would be useful, but that in the " Lilies r ' I had been 
writing of what I knew nothing about. Which was in a measure 
too ferae, and also that it is more partial than my writings are 
usually ; for as Eilesmere ° spoke his speech on the interven- 
tion, not indeed otherwise than he felt, but yet altogether for 
the sake of Gretchen, so I wrote the " Lilies " to please one girl, 
and were it not for what I remember of her, and a few besides, 
should now perhaps recast some of the sentences in the " Lilies"' 
in a very different tone ; — for as years have gone by, it has 
chanced to me, untowardly in some respects, fortunately in 
others (because it enables me to read history more clearly), 
to see the utmost evil that is in women, while I have but to 
believe the utmost good. The best women are indeed neces- 
sarily the most difficult to know ; they are recognized chiefly 
in the happiness of their husbands and the nobleness of their 
children. They are only to be divined, not discerned, by the 
stranger, and sometimes seem almost helpless except in their 
homes ; yet without the help of one of them, 1 to whom this 
book is dedicated, the clay would probably have come before 
now. when I should have written and thought no more. 

XVII. On the other hand, the fashion of the time ren- 
ders whatever is forward, coarse, or senseless in feminine nature, 

1 <pi\T]r 



PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 XXI 

too palpable to all men : the weak picturesqueness of my 
earlier writings brought me acquainted with much of their 
emptiest enthusiasm ; and the chances of later life gave me 
opportunities of watching women in states of degradation and 
vindictiveness which opened to me the gloomiest secrets of 
Greek and Syrian tragedy. I have seen them betray their 
household charities to lust, their pledged love to devotion ; I 
have seen mothers dutiful to their children as Medea ° and chil- 
dren dutiful to their parents as the daughter of Herodias ; but 
my trust is still unmoved in the preciousness of the natures 
that are so fatal in their error, and I leave the words of the 
"Lilies " unchanged ; believing, yet, that no man ever lived a 
right life who had not been chastened by a woman's love, 
strengthened by her courage, and guided by her discretion. 

XVIII. What I might myself have been, so helped, I rarely 
indulge in the idleness of thinking; but what I am, since I 
take on me the function of a teacher, it is well that the reader 
should know, as far as I can tell him : — 

Not an unjust person ;° not an unkind one ; not a false one ; 
a lover of order, labor, and peace. That, it seems to me, is 
enough to give me right to say all I care to say on ethical sub- 
jects ; more, I could only tell definitely through details of auto- 
biography such as none but prosperous and (in the simple sense 
of the word) faultless lives could justify, — and mine has been 
neither. Yet if any one, skilled in reading the torn manuscripts 
of the human soul, cares for more intimate knowledge of me, he 
may have it by knowing with what persons in past history I 
have most sympathy. 

I will name three : — 

In all that is strongest and deepest in me, — that fits me 
for my work, and gives light or shadow to my being, — I have 
sympathy with Guido Guinicelli. 

In my constant natural temper, and thoughts of things and 
of people, with Marmontel. 



XXII PREFACE TO EDITION OF 1871 

In my enforced and accidental temper, and thoughts of things 
and of people, with Dean Swift. 

Any one who can understand the natures of those three men, 
can understand mine ; and having said so much, I am content 
to leave both life and work to be remembered or forgotten, as 
their uses may deserve. 

Denmark Hill, Jan. 1. 1871. 



I 

OF KINGS' TREASURIES 



SESAME AND LILIES 



LECTUEE I 
SESAME ° 



You shall each have a cake of sesame, — and ten pound. 

Lucian : The Fisherman. 

1. My first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for the 
ambiguity of title under which the subject of lecture has been 
announced : for indeed I am not going to talk of kings, known 
as regnant, nor of treasuries, understood to contain wealth ; 
but of quite another order of royalty, and another material of 
riches, than those usually acknowledged. I had even intended 
to ask your attention for a little while on trust, and (as some- 
times one contrives, in taking a friend to see a favorite piece 
of scenery) to hide what I wanted most to show, with such 
imperfect cunning as I might, until we unexpectedly reached 
the best point of view by winding paths. But — and as also 
I have heard it said, by men practised in public address, that 
hearers are never so much fatigued as by the endeavor to fol- 
low a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose, — I will 
take the slight mask off ° at once, and tell you plainly that I 
want to speak to you about the treasures hidden in books ; 
and about the way we find them, and the way we lose them. 

3 



4 SESAME AXD LILIES 

A grave subject, you will say, and a wide one ! Yes ; so wide 
that I shall make no effort to touch the compass ° of it. I will 
try only to bring before you a few simple thoughts about read- 
ing, which press themselves upon me every day more deeply, 
as I watch the course of the public mind with respect to our 
daily enlarging means of education, and the answeringly wider 
spreading on the levels, of the irrigation of literature. 

2. It happens that I have practically some connection with 
schools ° for different classes of youth ; and I receive many let- 
ters ° from parents respecting the education of their children. 
In the mass of these letters I am always struck by the prece- 
dence which the idea of a " position in life " takes above all 
other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' 
— minds. " The education befitting such and such a station 
in life" — this is the phrase, this the object, always. They 
never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good in 
itself; even the conception of abstract Tightness in training 
rarely seems reached by the writers. But, an education " which 
shall keep a good coat on my son's back ; which shall enable 
him to ring with confidence the visitors' bell at double-belled 
doors • ° which shall result ultimately in the establishment of 
a double-belled door to his own house, — in a word, which 
shall lead to advancement in life, — this we pray for on bent 
knees and this is all we pray for." It never seems to occur to 
the parents that there may be an education ° which in itself is 
advancement in Life ; ° that any other than that may perhaps 
be advancement in Death ; ° and that this essential education 
might be more easily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set 
about it in the right way, while it is for no price and by no 
favor to be got, if they set about it in the wrong. 

3. Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effective in 
the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose the first — at 
least that which is confessed with the greatest frankness, and 
put forward as the fittest stimulus to youthful exertion — is 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 5 

this of " Advancement in life." May I ask you to consider 
with me, what this idea practically includes, and what it should 
include ? 

Practically, then, at present, " advancement in life " means, 
becoming conspicuous in life, — obtaining a position which 
shall be acknowledged by others to be respectable or honorable. 
We do not understand by this advancement, in general, the 
mere making of money, but the being known to have made it ; 
not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen 
to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification 
of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity ° of 
noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones, and on the 
whole, the strongest impulsive influence of average humanity. 
The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to 
the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes ° to the love of 
pleasure. 

4. I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want 
you only to feel how it lies at the root of effort, especially of 
all modern effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, 
with us, the stimulus of toil and balm of repose ; so closely 
does it touch the very springs of life that the wounding of our 
vanity is always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure mor- 
tal ;° we call it "mortification," using the same expression 
which we should apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily 
hurt. And although a few of us may be physicians enough to 
recognize the various effect of this passion upon health and 
energy, I believe most honest men know, and would at once 
acknowledge, its leading power with them as a motive. The 
seaman does not commonly desire to be made captain only be- 
cause he knows he can manage the ship better than any other 
sailor on board ; he wants to be made captain that he may be 
called captain. The clergyman does not usually want to be 
made a bishop only because he believes that no other hand can, 
as firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties ; he 



6 SESAME AND LILIES 

wants to be made bishop primarily that he may be called " My 
Lord." ° And a prince does not usually desire to enlarge, or a 
subject to gain, a kingdom because he believes that no one else 
can as well serve the State upon its throne, but, briefly, because 
he wishes to be addressed as " Your Majesty " by as many lips 
as may be brought to such utterance. 

5. This, then, being the main idea of " advancement in 
life," the force of it applies for all of us, according to our sta- 
tion, particularly to that secondary result of such advancement 
which we call " getting into good society." We want to get 
into good society, not that we may have it,° but that we may 
be seen in it ; and our notion of its goodness depends primarily 
on its conspicuousness. 

Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put what I 
fear you may think an impertinent question? I never can go 
on with an address unless I feel or know that my audience are 
either with me or against me. I do not much care which, in 
beginning ; but I must know where they are. And I would 
fain find out at this instant whether you think I am putting 
the motives of popular action too low.° I am resolved, to-night, 
to state them low enough to be admitted as probable ; for 
whenever, in my writings on Political Economy, I assume 
that a little honesty, or generosity, — or what used to be 
called ° " virtue," — may be calculated upon as a human motive 
of action, people always answer me, saying, " You must not 
calculate on that : that is not in human nature. You must 
not assume anything to be common to men but acquisitiveness 
and jealousy; no other feeling ever has influence on them, 
except accidentally, and in matters out of the way of busi- 
ness." I begin, accordingly, to-night low in the scale of 
motives ; but I must know if you think me right in doing so. 
Therefore, let me ask those who admit the love of praise to be 
usually the strongest motive in men's minds in seeking advance- 
ment, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to be 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 7 

an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (About a 
dozen hands held up, — the audience, partly, not being sure 
the lecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opjinion.) 
I am quite serious, — I really do want to know what you 
think ; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question. 
Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love 
of praise the second, motive, hold up their hands ? (One hand 
reported to have been held up, behind the lecturer}) Very 
good ; I see you are with me, and that you think I have not 
begun too near the ground. Now, without teasing you by 
putting farther question, I venture to assume that you will 
admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary motive. You 
think that the desire of doing something useful, or ' obtaining 
some real good, is indeed an existent collateral idea, though a 
secondary one, in most men's desire of advancement. You will 
grant that moderately honest men desire place and office, at 
least in some measure, for the sake of beneficent power, and 
would wish to associate rather with sensible and well-informed 
persons than with fools and ignorant persons, whether they are 
seen in the company of the sensible ones or not. And finally, 
without being troubled by repetition of any common truisms 
about the preciousness of friends and the influence of com- 
panions, you will admit, doubtless, that according to the 
sincerity of our desire that our friends may be true, and our 
companions wise, and in proportion to the earnestness and 
discretion with which we choose both, will be the general 
chances of our happiness and usefulness. 

6. But granting that we had both the will and the sense 
to choose our friends well, how few of us have the power ! or 
at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice ! Nearly 
all our associations are determined by chance or necessity, and 
restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we 
would; and those whom we know, we cannot have at our side 
when we most need them. All the higher circles of human 



8 SESAME AND LILIES 

intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and par- 
tially open. We may by good fortune obtain a glimpse of a 
great poet, and hear the sound of his voice, or put a question 
to a man of science, and be answered good-humoredly. We 
may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet minister, answered 
probably with words worse than silence, being deceptive, or 
snatch, once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a 
bouquet in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance 
of a queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet, and 
spend our years and passions and powers in pursuit of little 
more than these ; while, meantime, there is a society continually 
open to us of people who will talk to us as long as we like, 
whatever 'our rank or occupation, — talk to us in the best 
words they can choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. 
And this society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and 
can be kept waiting round us all day long, kings and states- 
men lingering patiently, not to grant audience, but to gain it ! 
in those plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, our book- 
case shelves, — we make no account of that company, perhaps 
never listen to a word they would say, all day long. 

7. You may tell me, perhaps, or think within yourselves, 
that the apathy with which we regard this company of the 
noble, who are praying us to listen to them, and the passion 
with which we pursue the company probably of the ignoble, 
who despise us, or who have nothing to teach us, are grounded 
in this, — that we can see the faces of the living men ; and it 
is themselves, and not their sayings, with which we desire to 
become familiar. But it is not so. Suppose you never were 
to see their faces ; suppose you could be put behind a screen in 
the statesman's cabinet or the prince's chamber, would you not 
be glad to listen to their words, though you were forbidden to 
advance beyond the screen? And when the screen is only a 
little less, folded in two ° instead of four, and you can be hidden 
behind the cover of the two boards that bind a book, and listen 

I 



OF KINGS 7 TREASURIES 9 

all day long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied, deter- 
mined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men, — this station of 
audience and honorable privy council you despise! 

8. But perhaps you will say that it is because the living 
people talk of things that are passing, and are of immediate 
interest to you, that you desire to hear them. Nay, that can- 
not be so \ for the living people will themselves tell you about 
passing matters much better in their writings than in their 
careless talk. But I admit that this motive does influence you, 
so far as you prefer those rapid and ephemeral ° writing to slow 
and enduring writings, — books, properly so-called, tfor all 
books are divisible into two classes, — the books of the hour, 
and the books of all time. Mark this distinction; it is not 
one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book that does 
not last, and the good one that does ; it is a distinction of spe- 
cies. There are good books for the hour, and good ones for„all 
time ; bad books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. ) ! I 
must define the two kinds before I go farther. 

9. The good book of the hour, then, — I do not speak of 
the bad ones, — is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some 
person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for 
you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know ; 
very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would 
'be. These bright accounts of travels ; good-humored and witty 
discussions of question ; lively or pathetic story-telling in the 
form of novel ; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned 
in the events of passing history, — all these books of the hour, 
multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a 
peculiar possession of the present age. We ought to be entirely 
thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make 
no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use it* 
we allow them to usurp the place of true books ; for strictly 
speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or news- 
papers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful or 






10 SESAME AND LILIES 

necessary to-day, — whether worth keeping or not, is to be con- 
sidered. The newspaper may be entirely proper ° at breakfast- 
time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day ; so, though 
bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so 
pleasant an account of the inns and roads and weather last 
year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or 
gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, how- 
ever valuable for occasional reference, may not be in the real 
sense of the word, a u book" at all, nor, in the real sense, 
to be ''read." A book is essentially not a talked thing, but 
a written thing, and written not with a view of mere com- 
munication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed 
only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at 
once ; if he could he woidd, — the volume is mere mult -(plica- 
tion of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India ; if 
you could, you would. You write instead : that is mere con- 
vey race of voice. .-' But a book is written, not to multiply the 
voice merely, not to cany it merely, but to perpetuate it. The 
author has something to say which he perceives to be true and 
useful, or helpfully beaut i rid. So far as he knows, no one has 
yet said it ; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is 
bouud to say it clearly and melodiously if he may : clearly, at 
all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing 
or group of things manifest to him, — this, the piece of true 
knowledge or sight which his share of sunshine and earth has 
permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down forever, 
engrave it on rock if he could, saying, " This is the best of me ; 
for the rest, I ate and drank and slept, loved and hated, like 
another. My life was as the vapor, and is not : but this I 
saw and knew, — this, if anything of mine, is worth your 
memory." This is his " writing " ; it is in his small human 
way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, 
his inscription or scripture. That is a " Book." c 

10. Perhaps you think no books were ever so written? 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 11 

Butj again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty or at 
all in kindness, or do you think there is never any honesty or 
benevolence in wise people 1 None of us, I hope, are so un- 
happy as to think that. (Well, whatever bit of a wise man's 
work is honestly and benevolently done, that bit is his book, 
or his piece of art. 1 ^) It is mixed always with evil fragments, 
— ill done, redundant, affected work. But if you read rightly, 
you will easily discover the true bits, and those are the book. 

11. Now, books of this kind have been written in all ages 
by their greatest men, — by great readers, great statesmen, 
and great thinkers. These are all at your choice \ and Life is 
short. Ti You have heard as much before ; yet have you meas- 
ured and mapped out this short life and its possibilities ? Do 
you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that \ that 
what you lose to-day you cannot gain to-morrow % Will you 
go and gossip with your housemaid or your stable-boy, when 
you may talk with queens and kings ; ° or flatter yourselves 
that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to 
respect that you jostle with the hungry and common crowd for 
entree ° here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal 
court is open to you, with its society, wide as the world, mul- 
titudinous as its days, — the chosen and the mighty of every 
place and time ? Into that you may enter always ; in that 
you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish ; 
from that, once entered into it, you can never be an outcast 
but by your own fault ; by your aristocracy of companionship 
there, your own inherent aristocracy ° will be assuredly tested, 
and the motives with which you strive to take high place in 
the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sin- 
cerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this 
company of the dead. 

12. "The place you desire," and the place you fit yourself 
for, I must also say, because, observe, this court of the past 
2 Note this sentence carefully, and compare "Queen of the Air," § 100. 



12 SESAME AND LILIES 

differs from all Hying aristocracy in this, — it is open to labor 
and to merit, but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no 
name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian 
gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar person ever enters 
there. At the portieres ° of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, 
there is but brief question : "Do you deserve to enter ? Pass. 
Do you ask to be the companion of nobles? Make yourself 
noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the conversation of 
the wise ? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear it. But 
on other terms ? -* No. If you will not rise to us, we cannot 
stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living 
philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain ■ 
but here we neither feign nor interpret. You must rise to the 
level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and 
share our feelings if you would recognize our presence." 

13. This, then, is what you have to do,° and I admit that 
it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if you 
are to be among them. No ambition is of any use. They 
scorn your ambition. You must love them, and show your 
love in these two following ways : — 

(a) First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to 
enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe, not 
to find your own expressed by them. If the person who wrote 
the book is not wiser than you, you need not read it ; if he be, 
he will think differently from you in many respects. 

Very ready we are to say of a book, " How good this is, — 
that's exactly what I think ! " But the right feeling is, " How 
strange that is ! I never thought of that before, and yet I see 
it is true ; or if I do not now, I hope I shall some day." But 
whether thus submissively or not, at least be sure that you go 
to the author to get at hu meaning, not to find yours. Judge 
it afterward if you think yourself qualified to do so ; but ascer- 
tain it first. And be sure also, if the author is worth any- 
thing, that you will not get at his meaning all at once, — nay, 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 13 

that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive 
in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in 
strong words too ; but he cannot say it all, and what is more 
strange, will not, but in a hidden way and in parable, in order 
that he may be sure you want it. I cannot quite see the 
reason of this, nor analyze that cruel reticence ° in the breasts 
of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper 
thought. They do not give it you by way of help, but of 
reward, and will make themselves sure that you deserve it 
before they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with the 
physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to you and me, no 
reason why the electric forces of the earth should not carry what- 
ever there is of gold within it at once to the mountain-tops ; so 
that kings and people might know that all the gold they could 
get was there, and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, 
or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as much as 
they needed. But Nature does not manage it so. She puts it 
in little fissures in the earth, nobody knows where ; you may 
dig long and find none ; you must dig painfully to find any. 

14. And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. 
When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, " Am 
I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my 
pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim, 
myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow, and my breath good, 
and my temper ? " And keeping the figure a little longer, even 
at a cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the 
metal you are in search of being the author's mind or meaning, 
his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt 
in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, 
wit, and learning ; your smelting furnace is your own thought- 
ful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author's meaning 
without those tools and that fire ; often you will need sharpest, 
finest chiselling and patientest fusing, before you can gather 
one grain of the metal. 



14 SESAME AND LILIES 

15. And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and 
authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into 
the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself 
of their meaning, syllable by syllable ° — nay, letter by letter. 
For though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in 
the function of signs to sounds in the function of signs, that 
the study of books is called " literature," ° and that a man 
versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of 
letters instead of a man of books or of words, you may yet 
connect with that accidental nomenclature this real fact, — 
that you might read all the books in the British Museum ° (if 
you could live long enough) and remain an utterly " illiterate," 
uneducated person ; but that if you read ten pages of a good 
book, letter by letter, — that is to say, with real accuracy, — 
you are forevermore in some measure an educated person. The 
entire difference between education and non-education (as regards 
the merely intellectual part of it) consists in this accuracy. A 
well-educated gentleman may not know many languages, may 
not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few 
books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely ; ° 
whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. Above 
all, he is learned in the peerage ° of words, knows the words of 
true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from the words of 
modern canaille ,° remembers all their ancestry, their inter- 
marriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they 
were admitted, and offices they held, among the national 
noblesse ° of words at any time and in any country. But an 
uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, 
and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any, — 
not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible 
seaman will be able -to make his way ashore at most ports, 
yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be 
known for an illiterate person ; so also the accent, or turn of 
expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 15 

And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by edu- 
cated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable ° is 
enough in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to 
a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever. 

16. ° And this is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy 
insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. 
It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in 
the House of Commons ; but it is wrong that a false English 
meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the accent of 
words be watched, and closely ; let their meaning be watched 
more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words, 
well chosen and distinguished, will do work that a thousand 
cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, in the function 
of another. Yes ; and words, if they are not watched, will do 
deadly work sometimes. There are masked ° words droning and 
skulking about us in Europe just now (there never were so 
many, owing to the spread of a shallow, blotching, blundering, 
infectious "information," or rather deformation, everywhere, 
and to the teaching of catechism and phrases at schools instead 
of human meanings) — there are masked words abroad, I say, 
which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and 
most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying 
they mean this or that or the other of things dear to them ; for 
such words wear chameleon cloaks, — " ground-lion " cloaks, 
of the color of the ground of any man's fancy ; on that ground 
they lie in wait, and rend him with a spring from it. There 
never were creatures of prey so mischievous, never diplomatists 
so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these masked words ; 
they are the unjust stewards ° of all men's ideas. Whatever 
fancy or favorite instinct a man most cherishes, he gives to 
his favorite masked words to take care of for him. The word 
at last comes to have an infinite power over him, — you cannot 
get at him but by its ministry. 

17. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the English, 



16 SESAME AND LILIES 

there is a fatal power of equivocation put into men's hands, 
almost whether they will or no, in being able to use Greek or 
Latin words for an idea when they want it to be awful, and 
Saxon or otherwise common words when they want it to be 
vulgar. What a singular and salutary effect, for instance, 
would be produced on the minds of people who are in the 
habit of taking the form of the " Word " they live by for the 
Power of which that Word tells them, if we always either 
retained, or refused, the Greek form " biblos," or "biblion," as 
the right expression for " book," instead of employing it only 
in the one instance in which we wish to give dignity to the 
idea, and translating it into English everywhere else. How 
wholesome it would be for many simple persons if in such 
places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19, we retained the Greek 
expression, instead of translating it, and they had to read : 
"Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their 
Bibles together, and burned them before all men; and they 
counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces 
of silver " I Or if, on the other hand, we translated where we 
retain it, and always spoke of " the Holy Book," instead of 
" Holy Bible," it might come into more heads than it does at 
present, that the Word of God, by which the heavens ° were of 
old, and by which they are now kept in store, 1 cannot be made 
a present of to anybody in morocco ° binding, nor sown on any 
wayside ° by help either of steam plough or steam press, but 
is nevertheless being offered to us daily, and by us with con- 
tumely refused, and sown in us daily, and by us, as instantly 
as may be, choked. 

18. So, again, consider what effect has been produced on 
the English vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous Latin 
form " damno," in translating the Greek KoraKpiVw, when 
people charitably wish to make it forcible ; and the substitu- 

i 2 Peter iii. 5-7. 



OF KINGS 9 TREASURIES 11 

tion of the temperate " condemn " ° for it, when they choose to 
keep it gentle \ and what notable sermons have been preached 
by illiterate clergymen on — "He that believeth not shall be 
damned," though they would shrink with horror from trans- 
lating Heb. xi. 7, " The saving of his house, by which he 
damned the world," or John viii. 10—11, "Woman, hath no 
man damned thee ? She said, No man, Lord. Jesus answered 
her, Neither do I damn thee ; go, and sin no more." And 
divisions in the mind of Europe, ° which have cost seas of blood, 
and in the defence of which the noblest souls of men have been 
cast away in frantic desolation, countless as forest-leaves, — 
though, in the heart of them, founded on deeper causes, — 
have nevertheless been rendered practically possible mainly, by 
the European adoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, 
" ecclesia," ° to give peculiar respectability to such meetings, 
when held for religious purposes ; and other collateral equivo- 
cations, such as the vulgar English one of using the word 
" priest " as a contraction for " presbyter." 

19. Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the 
habit you must form. Nearly every word in your language 
has been first a word of some other language, — of Saxon, Ger- 
man, French, Latin, or Greek ; (not to speak of Eastern and 
primitive dialects). And many words have been all these; 
that is to say, have been Greek first, Latin next, French or 
German next, and English last, — undergoing a certain change 
of sense and use on the lips of each nation, but retaining a 
deep vital meaning, which all good scholars feel in employing 
them, even at this day. If you do not know the Greek alpha- 
bet, learn it. Young or old, girl or boy, whoever you may be, 
if you think of reading seriously (which, of course, implies that 
you have some leisure at command), learn your Greek alphabet ; 
then get good dictionaries of all these languages, and whenever 
you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down patiently. Read 
Max Midler's ° lectures thoroughly, to begin with ; and after 



18 SESAME AND LILIES 






that never let a word escape you that looks suspicious. It is 
severe work ; but you will find it, even at first, interesting, and 
at last, endlessly amusing. And the general gain to your char- 
acter, in power and precision, will be quite incalculable. 

Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know, 
Greek, or Latin, or French. It takes a whole life ° to learn any 
language perfectly. But you can easily ascertain the meanings 
through which the English word has passed, and those which 
in a good writer's work it must still bear. 

20. And now, merely for example's sake, I will, with your 
permission, read a few lines of a true book with you carefully, 
and see what will come out of them. I will take a book per- 
fectly known to you all. No English words are more familiar 
to us, yet few perhaps have been read with less sincerity. I 
will take these few following lines of " Lycidas " : — ° 

11 Last came, and last did go, 
The pilot of the Galilean lake. 
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,) 
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake : 
4 How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
Enow of such as for their bellies' sake 
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 
Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest ; 
Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have learned aught else, the least 
That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs ! 
What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; 
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw. 
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread, 
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.' M 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 19 

Let us think over this passage, and examine its words. 

First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to Saint 
Peter not only his full episcopal function, but the very types 
of it which Protestants usually refuse most passionately ? His 
" mitred " locks ! Milton was no bishop-lover ; ° how comes 
Saint Peter to be "mitred"? "Two massy keys he bore," 
Is this, then, the power of the keys claimed ° by the bishops of 
Kome, and is it acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetical 
license, for the sake of its picturesqueness, that he may get the 
gleam of the golden keys to help his effect 1 Do not think it. 
Great men do not play stage tricks with the doctrines of life 
and death ; only little men do that. Milton means what he 
says, and means it with his might, too, — is going to put the 
whole strength of his spirit presently into the saying of it. 
For though not a lover of false bishops, he was a lover of true 
ones ; and the Lake-pilot is here, in his thoughts, the type and 
head of true episcopal power. For Milton reads that text, " I 
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven " quite 
honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out of 
the book because there have been bad bishops, — nay, in order 
to understand him, we must understand that verse first ; it will 
not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under our breath, as if 
it were a weapon of an adverse sect. It is a solemn, universal 
assertion, deeply to be kept in mind by all sects. But perhaps 
we shall be better able to reason on it if we go a little farther, 
and come back to it. For clearly this marked insistence on the 
power of the true episcopate is to make us feel more weightily 
what is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate, 
or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in the 
body of the clergy, they who " for their bellies' sake creep, and 
intrude, and climb into the fold." 

21. Never think Milton uses those three words to fill up his 
verse, as a loose writer would. He needs all the three, — 
specially those three, and no more than those, — " creep " and 



20 SESAME AND LILIES 

" intrude " and " climb " ; no other words would or could serve 
the turn, and no more could be added. For they exhaustively 
compreheDd the three classes, correspondent to the three char- 
acters, of men who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First, 
those who " creep " into the fold, who do not care for office, nor 
name, but for secret influence, and do all things occultly and 
cunningly, consenting to any servility of office or conduct, so 
only that they may intimately discern, and unawares direct, 
the minds of men. Then those who " intrude " (thrust, that is) 
themselves into the fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and 
stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perse verant self-assertion, 
obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, 
those who " climb," who, by labor and learning both stout and 
sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, 
gain high dignities and authorities, and become " lords over 
the heritage," though not " ensamples to the flock." ° 
22. Now go on : — 

" Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. 
Blind mouths — " 

I pause again, for this is a strange expression, — a broken 
metaphor, one might think, careless and unscholarly. 

Not so ; its very audacity and pithiness are intended to 
make us look close at the phrase and remember it. Those two 
monosyllables express the precisely accurate contraries of right 
character in the two great offices of the Church, — those of 
bishop and pastor. 

A "bishop" means "a person who sees." 

A "pastor" means "a person who feeds." 

The most unbishoply character a man can have is therefore 
to be blind. 

The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to be 
fed, — to be a mouth. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 21 

Take the two reverses together, and you have "blind 
mouths." We may advisably follow out this idea a little. 
Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops 
desiring power more than light. They want authority, not 
outlook ; whereas their real office is not to rule, though it may 
be vigorously to exhort and rebuke. It is the king's office to 
rule ; the bishop's office is to oversee the flock, to number it, 
sheep by sheep, to be ready always to give full account of it. 
Now, it is clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has 
not so much as numbered the bodies, of his flock. The first 
thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to put him- 
self in a position in which, at any moment, he can obtain the. 
history, from childhood, of every living soul in his diocese, 
and of its present state. Down in that back street, Bill and 
Nancy knocking each other's teeth out, — does the bishop 
know ° all about it ? Has he his eye upon them ? Has he had 
his eye upon them ? Can he circumstantially explain to us how 
Bill got into the habit of beating Nancy about the head ? If 
he cannot, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as 
Salisbury steeple ; ° he is no bishop, — he has sought to be at 
the helm ° instead of the masthead ; he has no sight of things. 
" Nay," you say, "it is not his duty to look after Bill in the 
back street." What ! the fat sheep that have full fleeces, — 
you think it is only those he should look after while (go back 
to your Milton) "the hungry sheep look up, and are not 
fed, besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw" (bishops 
knowing nothing about it) " daily devours apace, and nothing 
said"? 

" But that's not our idea of a bishop." 1 Perhaps not \ but 
it was St. Paul's, and it was Milton's. They may be right, 
or we may be ; but we must not think we are reading either 
one or the other by putting our meaning into their words. 

1 Compare the 13th Letter in (< Time and Tide." 



22 SESAME AND LILIES 

23. I go on. 

" But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw." 

This is to meet the vulgar answer that " if the poor are not 
looked after in their bodies, they are in their souls ; they have 
spiritual food." 

And Milton says, "They have no such thing as spiritual 
food ; they are only swollen with wind." At first you may 
think that is a coarse type, and an obscure one. But again, it 
is a quite literally accurate one. Take up your Latin and 
Greek dictionaries and find out the meaning of " Spirit." It is 
only a contraction of the Latin word "breath," and an indis- 
tinct translation of the Greek word for "wind." The same 
word is used in writing, " The wind bloweth where it listeth," 
and in writing, "So is every one that is born of the Spirit ; " 
born of the breath, that is, for it means the breath of God in 
soul and body. We have the true sense of it in our words 
"inspiration" and "expire." Now, there are two kinds of 
breath with which the flock may be filled, — God's breath and 
man's. The breath of God is health and life and peace to 
them, as the air of heaven is to the flocks on the hills ; but 
man's breath — the word which he calls spiritual — is disease 
and contagion to them, as the fog of the fen. They rot in- 
wardly with it ; they are puffed up by it, as a dead body by 
the vapors of its own decomposition. This is literally true of 
all false religious teaching ; the first and last and fatalest sign 
of it is that " puffing up." ° Your converted children, who 
teach their parents ; your converted convicts, who teach hon- 
est men ; your converted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous 
stupefaction half their lives, suddenly awaking to the fact of 
there being a God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar 
people and messengers ; your sectarians of every species, small 
and great, Catholic or Protestant, of High Church or Low.° in 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 23 

so far as they think themselves exclusively in the right and 
others wrong ; and pre-eminently, in every sect, those who hold 
that men can be saved by thinking rightly instead of doing 
rightly, by work instead of act, and wish instead of work, — 
these are the true fog children ; clouds, these, without water ; ° 
bodies, these, of putrescent vapor and skin without blood or 
flesh, blown bagpipes for the fiends to pipe with, corrupt 
and corrupting, " Swoln with wind, and the rank mist they 
draw." 

24. Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the power 
of the keys, for now we can understand them. Note the 
difference between Milton and Dante, in their interpreta- 
tion of this power ; for once the latter is weaker in thought. 
He supposes both the keys ° to be of the gate of heaven ; 
one is of gold, the other of silver. They are given by Saint 
Peter to the sentinel angel ; and it is not easy to deter- 
mine the meaning either of the substances of the three steps 
of the gate, or of the two keys. But Milton makes one, of 
gold, the key of heaven, the other, of iron, the key of the 
prison in which the wicked teachers are to be bound who 
"have taken away the key° of knowledge, yet entered not in 
themselves." 

We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor are to 
see and feed, and of all who do so it is said, " He that water- 
eth,° shall be watered also himself." But the reverse is truth 
also. He that watereth not, shall be withered himself; and 
he that seeth not, shall himself be shut out of sight, — shut 
into the perpetual prison-house. And that prison opens here 
as well as hereafter ; he who is to be bound in heaven must 
first be bound on earth. That command ° to the strong angels, 
of which the rock-apostle ° is the image, " Take him, and bind 
him hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its measure, 
against the teacher, for every help withheld, and for every 
truth refused, and for every falsehood enforced ; so that he is 



24 SESAME AND LILIES 

more strictly fettered the more he fetters, and farther outcast 
as he more and more misleads, till at last the bars of the iron 
cage close upon him, and as " the golden opes, the iron shuts 
amain." 

25. We have got something out of the lines, I think, and 
much more is yet to be found in them ;f but we have done 
enough by way of example of the kind of word-by-word exami- 
nation of your author which is rightly called "reading," — 
watching every accent and expression, and putting ourselves 
always in the author's place, annihilating our own personality, 
and seeking to enter into his, so as to be able assuredly to say, 
" Thus Milton thought," not " Thus / thought, in misreading 
Milton." And by this process you will gradually come to 
attach less weight to your own " Thus I thought " at other 
times. You will begin to perceive that what you thought was 
a matter of no serious importance ; that your thoughts on any 
subject are not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be 
arrived at thereupon ; in fact, that unless you are a very 
singular person, you cannot be said to have any " thoughts " 
at all ; that you have no materials for them in any serious 
matters, 1 ° — no right to " think," but only to try to learn more 
of the facts. Nay, most probably all your life (unless, as I 
said, you are a singular person) you will have no legitimate 
right to an " opinion " on any business, except that instantly 
under your hand. What must of necessity be done you can 
always find out, beyond question, how to do. Have you a 
house to keep in order, a commodity to sell, a field to plough, 
a ditch to cleanse ? ° There need be no two opinions about the 
proceedings ; it is at your peril if you have not much more 
than an " opinion " on the way to manage such matters. And 
also, outside of your own business, there are one or two sub- 

1 Modern " education " for the most part signifies giving people the 
faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance 
to thera. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 25 

jects on which you are bound to have but one opinion, — that 
roguery and lying are objectionable, and are instantly to be 
flogged out of the way whenever discovered ; that covetousness 
and love of quarrelling are dangerous dispositions even in chil- 
dren, and deadly dispositions in men and nations ; that in the 
end, the God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and 
kind people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones. On 
these general facts you are bound to have but one, and that a 
very strong, opinion. For the rest, respecting religions, gov- 
ernments, sciences, arts, you will find that on the whole you 
can know nothing, judge nothing ; that the best you can do, 
even though you may be a well-educated person, is to be 
silent, and strive to be wiser every day, and to understand a 
little more of the thoughts of others, which so soon as you try 
to do honestly, you will discover that the thoughts even of the 
wisest are very little more than pertinent questions. To 
put the difficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit to you the 
grounds for indecision, that is all they can generally do for 
you ; and well for them and for us if indeed they are able " to 
mix the music ° with our thoughts, and sadden us with 
heavenly doubts." This writer from whom I have been 
reading to you is not among the first or wisest : he sees 
shrewdly as far as he sees, and therefore it is easy to find out 
his full meaning ; but with the greater men you cannot fathom 
their meaning ; they do not even wholly measure it themselves, 
it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, for instance, to seek 
for Shakespeare's opinion instead of Milton's on this matter of 
church authority, — or of Dante's ? Have any of you at this 
instant the least idea what either thought about it? Have 
you ever balanced the scene with the bishops in Richard III. 
against the character of Cranmer? the description of Saint 
Francis and Saint Dominic against that of him who made 
Virgil wonder to gaze upon him, — "disteso, tanto vilmente, 
nell' eterno esilio;" or of him whom Dante stood beside, 



26 SESAME AND LILIES 

" come '1 Irate eke confessa lo perfido assassin n 1 l Shakespeare 
and Alighieri knew men better than most of us, I presume. 
They were both in the midst of the main struggle between the 
temporal and spiritual powers. They had an opinion, we may 
guess. But where is it \ Bring it into court ! Put Shake- 
speare's or Dante's creed into articles, and send it up for trial 
by the Ecclesiastical Courts ! 

26. You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and 
many a day, to come at the real purposes and teaching of these 
great men : but a very little honest study of them will 
enable you to perceive that what you took for your own 
" judgment " was mere chance prejudice, and drifted, helpless, 
entangled weed of castaway thought, — nay, you will see that 
most men's minds are indeed little better than rough heath 
wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly over- 
grown with pestilent brakes ° and venomous, wind-sown kerb- 
age of evil surmise ; that the first thing you have to do for 
them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this, 
bum all the jungle into wholesome ashheaps, and then plough 
and sow. All the true literary work before you, for life, must 
begin with obedience to that order, " Break up ° your fallow 
ground, and sow not among thorns." 

27.° (b) 2 Having then faithfully listened to the great 
teachers, that you may enter into their Thoughts, you have yet 
this higher advance to make, — you have to enter into their 
Hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, so you must 
stay with them that you may share at last their just and 
mighty Passion. Passion, or " sensation." : I am not afraid of 
the word, still less of the thing. You have heard many out- 
cries against sensation lately, but. I can tell you, it is not less 
sensation we want, but more. The ennobling difference between 
one man and another — between one animal and another — is 

i Inf. xxiii. 125, 126 ; xix. 49, 50. 2 Compare § 13 above. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 27 

precisely in this, that one feels more than another. If we were 
sponges, perhaps sensation might not be easily got for us • if 
we were earth-worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two 
by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might not be good 
for us. But being human creatures, it is good for us ; nay, 
we are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our honor 
is precisely in proportion to our passion. 

28. You know I said of that great and pure society of the 
Dead, that it would allow " no vain or vulgar person to enter 
there." What do you think I meant by a "vulgar" person? 
What do you yourself mean by " vulgarity " 1 You will find 
it a fruitful subject of thought; but, briefly, the essence of all 
vulgarity lies in want of sensation. Simple and innocent 
vulgarity is merely an untrained and undeveloped blunt- 
ness of body and mind ; but in true inbred vulgarity there is 
a dreadful callousness, which in extremity becomes capable 
of every sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, with- 
out pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in the 
blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased habit, in the 
hardened conscience, that men become vulgar; they are for- 
ever vulgar, precisely in proportion as they are incapable of 
sympathy, of quick understanding, of all that, in deep insist- 
ence on the common but most accurate term, may be called 
the " tact " ° or " touch-faculty " of body and soul ; that tact 
which the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has 
above all creatures, — fineness and fulness of sensation, be- 
yond reason, the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason 
can but determine what is true, — it is the God-given passion ° 
of humanity which alone can recognize what God has made 
good. 

29. We come then to that great concourse of the Dead, not 
merely to know from them what is true, but chiefly to feel ° 
with them what is just. Now, to feel with them, we must be 
like them ; and none of us can become that without pains. As 



28 SESAME AND LILIES 

the true knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge, — not 
the first thought that comes, — so the true passion is disci- 
plined and tested passion, — not the first passion that comes. 
The first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous \ if 
you yield to them, they will lead you wildly and far, in vain 
pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose 
and no true passion left. Xot that any feeling possible to 
humanity is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined. 
Its nobility is in its force and justice ; it is wrong when it is 
weak, and felt for paltry cause. There is a mean wonder, as of 
a child who sees a juggler tossing golden balls, and this is base, 
if you will. But do you think that the wonder is ignoble, or the 
sensation less, with which every human soul is called to watch 
the golden balls of heaven ° tossed through the night by the 
Hand that made them? There is a mean curiosity, as of a 
child opening a forbidden door, or a servant prying into her 
master's business ; — and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the 
front of danger, the source of the great river beyond the sand, — 
the place of the great continent beyond the sea, — a nobler 
curiosity still, which questions of the source of the River of 
Life, and of the space of the Continent of Heaven — things 
which "the angels desire to look into."°>[So the anxiety is 
ignoble, with which you linger over the course and catastrophe ° 
of an idle tale ; but do you think the anxiety is less, or greater, 
with which you watch, or ought to watch, the dealings of fate 
and destiny with the life of an agonized nation ? ° Alas ! it is 
the narrowness, selfishness, minuteness of your sensation that 
you have to deplore in England at this day ; — sensation which 
spends itself in bouquets and speeches ; in revellings and junket- 
ings ; ° in sham fights and gay puppet shows, while you can 
look on and see noble nations murdered, man by man, without 
an effort or a tear. 

30. I said " minuteness " and " selfishness " of sensation, 
but it would have been enough to have said " injustice " or 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES ' 29 

" unrighteousness " of sensation. For as in nothing is a gentle- 
man better to be discerned from a vulgar person, so in nothing 
is a gentle nation (such nations have been) better to be dis- 
cerned from a mob, than in this, — that their feelings are con- 
stant and just, results of due contemplation, and of equal 
thought. You can talk a mob ° into anything ; its feelings 
may be — usually are — on the whole, generous and right ; 
but it has no foundation for them, no hold of them ; you may 
tease or tickle it into any, at your pleasure ; it thinks by infec- 
tion, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, and 
there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself wild about, 
when the fit is on ; — nothing so great but it will forget in an 
hour, when the fit is past. But a gentleman's, or a gentle 
nation's, passions are just, measured, and continuous. A great 
nation, for instance, does not spend its entire national wits ° for 
a couple of months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's 
having done a single murder ; and for a couple of years see 
its own children ° murder each other by their thousands or tens 
of thousands a day, considering only what the effect is likely 
to be on the price of cotton, and caring nowise to determine 
which side of battle is in the wrong. Neither does a great 
nation send its poor littleiJoy^s^tp/JTtrl for stealing six walnuts • ° 
and allow its bankrupts^jto steaLtheir hundreds of thousands 
with a bow, and its bankers^ rich with poor men's savings, to 
close their doors " under circumstances ° over which they have 
no control," with a " by your leave " ; and large landed estates 
to be bought by men who have made their money ° by going 
with armed steamers up and down the China Seas, selling 
opium at the cannon's mouth, and altering, for the benefit of 
the foreign nation, the common highwayman's demand of 
"your money or your life," into that of "your money and 
your life." Neither does a great nation allow the lives of its 
innocent poor to be parched out of them by fog fever, and 
rotted out of them by dunghill plague, for the sake of six 



30 SESAME AND LILIES 

pence a life ° extra per week to its landlords ; 1 and then debate, 
with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it 
ought not piously to save, and musingly cherish, the lives of 
its murderers. Also, a great nation having made up its mind 
that hanging is quite the wholesomest process for its homicides 
in general, can yet with mercy distinguish between the degrees 
of guilt in homicides, and does not yelp like a pack of frost- 
pinched wolf-cubs on the blood track of an unhappy crazed 
boy,° or gray-haired clodpate Othello, "perplexed i' the ex- 
treme," ° at the very moment that it is sending a Minister of 
the Crown ° to make polite speeches to a man who is bayonet- 
ing young girls in their fathers' sight, and killing noble youths 
in cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills lambs in 
spring. And, lastly, a great nation does not mock Heaven 
and its Powers, by pretending belief in a revelation which 
asserts ° the love of money to be the root of all evil, and de- 
claring, at the same time, that it is actuated, and intends to 
be actuated, in all chief national deeds and measures, by no 
other love. 

31. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk 
about reading. We want some sharper discipline than that 
of reading \ but, at all events, be assured, we cannot read. 
No reading is possible for a people with its mind in this state. 
No sentence of any great writer is intelligible to them. It is 
simply and sternly impossible for the English public, at this 
moment, to understand any thoughtful writing, — so incapable 
of thought has it become in its insanity of avarice. Happily, 
our disease is, as yet, little worse than this incapacity of 
thought ; it is not corruption of the inner nature ; we ring 
true still, when anything strikes home to us ; and though the 
idea that everything should " pay " has infected our every pur- 

1 See note at end of lecture. I have put it in large type, because 
the course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better 
worth attention. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 31 

pose so deeply, that even when we would play the good Samar- 
itan, we never take out our two-pence ° and give them to the 
host, without saying, "When I come again, thou shalt give 
me four-pence," there is a capacity of noble passion ° left in our 
hearts' core. We show it in our work — in our war — even 
in those unjust domestic affections which make us furious at a 
small private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless public 
one; we are still industrious to the last hour of the day, 
though we add the gambler's fury to the laborer's patience ; 
we are still brave to the death, though incapable of discerning 
true cause for battle ; and are still true in affection to our own 
flesh, to the death, as the sea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles. ° 
And there is hope for a nation while this can be still said of 
it. As long as it holds its life in its hand, ready to give it for 
its honor (though a foolish honor), for its love (though a self- 
ish love), and for its business (though a base business), there 
is hope for it. But hope only ; for this instinctive, reckless 
virtue cannot last. No nation can last, which has made a 
mob of itself, however generous at heart. It must discipline 
its passions, and direct them, or they will discipline it, one 
day, with scorpion-whips. Above all, a nation cannot last as 
a money-making mob : ° it cannot with impunity, — it cannot 
with existence, — go on despising literature, despising science, 
despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, and con- 
centrating its soul on Pence. Do you think these are harsh 
or wild words? Have patience with me but a little longer. 
I will prove their truth to you, clause by clause. 

32. I. I say first we have despised literature. What do 
we, as a nation, care about books ? How much do you think 
we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as com- 
pared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends 
lavishly on his library, you call him mad — a bibliomaniac. 
But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men ruin 
themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of 



32 SESAME AXD LILIES 

people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower 
still, how much do you think the contents of the book shelves 
of the United Kingdom, public or private, would fetch, as 
compared with the contents of its wine-cellars I What posi- 
tion would its expenditure on literature take, as compared 
with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food 
for the mind, as of food for the body : now a good book con- 
tains such food inexhaustibly : it is a provision for life, and 
for the best part of us ; yet how long most people would look 
at the best book before they would give the price of a large 
turbot for it ! Though there have been men who have pinched 
their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose 
libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most 
men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and 
more the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more 
precious to us if it has been won by work or economy ; and if 
public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books 
cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and 
women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading, as 
well as in munching ° and sparkling ; ° whereas the very cheap- 
ness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a 
book is worth reading, it is worth buying. Xo book is worth 
anything which is not worth much ; nor is it serviceable until 
it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again ; and 
marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, 
as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or a 
house-wife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of 
flour is good ; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we woidd 
eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor indeed, 
which, once in their lives, cannot for such multipliable barley- 
loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich nation, 
and we are filthy and foolish enough to thiunb each other's 
books out of circulating libraries ! ° 

33. II. I say we have despised ° science. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 33 

" What ! " you exclaim, " are we not foremost in all dis- 
covery, 1 and is not the whole world giddy by reason, or un- 
reason, of our inventions 1 " Yes, but do you suppose that is 
national work ? That work is all done in spite of the nation ; 
by private people's zeal and money. We are glad enough, 
indeed, to make our profit of science ; we snap up anything 
in the way of a scientific bone that has meat on it, eagerly 
enough ; but if the scientific man comes for a bone or a crust 
to us, that is another story. What have we publicly clone for 
science ? We are obliged to know what o'clock it is, for the 
safety of our ships, and therefore we pay for an Observatory ; 
and we allow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be 
annually tormented into doing something, in a slovenly way, 
for the British Museum ; ° sullenly apprehending that to be a 
place for keeping stuffed birds in, to amuse our children. If 
anybody will pay for their own telescope, and resolve another 
nebula, we cackle over the discernment as if it were our own ; 
if one in ten thousand of our hunting squires suddenly perceives 
that the earth was indeed made to be something else than a 
portion for foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us where 
the gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there is 
some use in that ; and very properly knight him : but is the 
accident of his having found out how to employ himself use- 
fully any credit to us ? (The negation of such discovery ° 
among his brother squires may perhaps be some discredit to 
us, if we would consider of it.) But if you doubt these gen- 
eralities, here is one fact for us all to meditate upon, illustrative 
of our love of science. Two years ago there was a collection 
of the fossils of Solenhofen ° to be sold in Bavaria ; the best in 
existence, containing many specimens unique for perfectness, 
and one, unique as an example of a species (a whole kingdom 

1 Since this was written, the answer lias become definitely — No; 
we having surrendered the Held of Arctic discovery to the Continental 
nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships. 

D 



34 SESAME AXD LILIES 



of unknown living creatures being announced by that fossil). 
This collection, of which the mere market worth, among private 
buyers, would probably have been some thousand or twelve 
hundred pounds, was offered to the English nation for seven 
hundred : but we would not give seven hundred, and the whole 
series would have been in the Munich museum at this moment, 
if Professor Owen l ° had not, with loss of his own time, and 
patient tormenting of the British public in person of its repre- 
sentatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds at once, and 
himself become answerable for the other three ! which the said 
public will doubtless pay him eventually, but sulkily, and 
caring nothing about the matter all the while ; only always 
ready to cackle if any credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of 
you, arithmetically, what this fact means. Your annual ex- 
penditure for public purposes (a third of it for military appa- 
ratus) is at least fifty millions. Now £700 is to £50,000,000, 
roughly, as seven-pence to two thousand pounds. Suppose, 
then, a gentleman of unknown income, but whose wealth was 
to be conjectured from the fact that he spent two thousand a 
year on his park walls and footmen only, professes himself fond 
of science ; and that one of his servants conies eagerly to tell 
him that an unique collection of fossils, giving clue to a new 
era of creation, is to be had for the sum of seven-pence sterling \ 
and that the gentleman, who is fond of science, and spends two 
thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his servant 
waiting several months, " Well ! I'll give you four-pence for 
them, if you will be answerable for the extra three-pence your- 
self, till next year ! " 

3i. III. I say you have despised Art ! " What ! " you 
again answer, "have we not Art exhibitions, miles long? and 

1 1 state this fact without Professor Owen's permission, which of 
course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it ; but I 
consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact, 
that I do what seems to me right, though rude. 



a). 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 35 

do not we pay thousands of pounds for single pictures ? and 
have we not Art schools and institutions, more than ever nation 
had before 1 " Yes, truly, but all that is for the sake of the 
shop. You would fain sell canvas as well as coals, and crock- 
ery as well as iron ; you would take every other nation's bread 
out of its mouth if you could ; l ° not being able to do that, 
your ideal of life is to stand in the thoroughfares of the world, 
like Ludgate apprentices, screaming to every passer-by, 
" What d' ye lack?" You know nothing of your own facul- 
ties or circumstances ; you fancy that, among your damp, flat, 
fat fields of clay you can have as quick art-fancy as the French- 
man among his bronzed vines, or the Italian under his volcanic 
cliffs ; ° — that Art may be learned as book-keeping is, and 
when learned, will give you more books to keep. You care 
for pictures, absolutely, no more than you do for the bills 
pasted on your dead walls. There is always room on the walls 
for the bills to be read, — never for the pictures to be seen. 
You do not know what pictures you have (by repute) in the 
country, nor whether they are false or true, nor whether they 
are taken care of or not ; in foreign countries, you calmly see 
the noblest existing pictures in the world rotting in abandoned 
wreck — (in Venice you saw the Austrian guns ° deliberately 
pointed at the palaces containing them), and if you heard that 
all the fine pictures in Europe were made into sandbags 
to-morrow on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you 
so much as the chance of a brace or two of game less in your 
own bags, in a day's shooting. That is your national love of 
Art. 

35. IV. You have despised nature ; that is to say, all the 
deep and sacred sensations of natural scenery. The French 

1 That was our real idea of " Free Trade " ° — " All the trade to my- 
self." You find now that by "competition " other people can manage 
to sell something as well as you — and now we call for Protection 
again. Wretches ! 



36 SESAME AND LILIES 

revolutionists made stables ° of the cathedrals of France ; you 
have made race-courses of the cathedrals of the earth. Your 
one conception of pleasure is to drive in railroad carriages round 
their aisles, and eat off their altars. 1 You have put a railroad- 
bridge over the falls of Schaffhausen. You have tunnelled 
the cliffs of Lucerne ° by TelFs chapel ; ° you have destroyed the 
Clarens shore ° of the Lake of Geneva ; there is not a quiet 
valley in England that you have not filled with bellowing fire f 
there is no particle left of English land which you have not 
trampled coal ashes into 2 — nor any foreign city in which the 
spread of your presence is not marked among its fair old streets 
and happy gardens by a consuming white leprosy of new hotels 
and perfumers' shops : the Alps themselves, which your own 
poets used to love so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles 
in a bear-garden, which you set yourselves to climb and slide 
down again, with "shrieks of delight." When you are past 
shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are 
glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with gunpowder 
blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption 'of conceit, 
and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I 
think nearly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen 
in humanity, taking the deep inner significance of them, are the 
English mobs ° in the valley of Chamouni, amusing themselves 
with firing rusty howitzers ; ° and the Swiss vintagers of Zurich 
expressing their Christian thanks for the gift of the vine, by 
assembling in knots in the " towers of the vineyards," ° and 
slowly loading and firing horse-pistols from morning till even- 
ing. It is pitiful, to have dim conceptions of duty; more 

1 I meant that the beautiful places of the world — Switzerland, Italy, 
South Germany, and so on — are, indeed, the truest cathedrals — places 
to be revereut in, and to worship in ; and that we only care to drive 
through them ; and to eat and drink at their most sacred places. 

2 I was singularly struck, some years ago, by finding all the river 
shore at Richmond, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from the mere 
drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away. 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 37 

pitiful, it seems to me, to have conceptions like these, of 
mirth. 

36. Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need of 
words of mine for proof of this. I will merely print one of the 
newspaper paragraphs which I am in the habit of cutting out 
and throwing into my store-drawer ;° here is one from a " Daily 
Telegraph" of an early date this year (1864)° (date which, 
though by me carelessly left unmarked, is easily discoverable ; 
for on the back of the slip, there is the announcement that 
" yesterday the seventh of the special services of this year was 
performed by the Bishop of Kipon in St. Paul's ") ; it relates 
only one of such facts as happen now daily ; this by chance 
having taken a form in which it came before the coroner. 
I will print the paragraph in red. Be sure, the facts them- 
selves are written in that color, in a book which we shall 
all of us, literate or illiterate, have to read our page of, some 
day. 

An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Richards, deputy 
coroner, at the White Horse tavern, Christ Church, Spital- 
flelds, respecting the death of Michael Collins, aged 58 years. 
Mary Collins, a miserable looking woman, said that she lived 
with the deceased and his son in a room at 2, Cobb's Court, 
Christ Church. Deceased was a " translator " ° of boots. Wit- 
ness went out and bought old boots ; deceased and his son 
made them into good ones, and then witness sold them for what 
she could get at the shops, which was very'little indeed. De- 
ceased and his son used to work night and day to try and get 
a little bread and tea, and pay for the room (2s. a week), so 
as to keep the home together. On Friday-night week, deceased 
got up from his bench and began to shiver. He threw down 
the boots, saying, " Somebody else must finish them when I 
am gone, for I can do no more." There was no fire, and he 
said, " I would be better if I was warm." Witness therefore 



38 SESAME AND LILIES 

took two pairs of " translated " boots l to sell at the shop, but 
she could only get 14<i. for the two pairs, for the people at the 
shop said, " We must have our profit." Witness got 14 lb. of 
coal, and a little tea and bread. Her son sat up the whole 
night to make the " translations," to get money, but deceased 
died on Saturday morning. The family never had enough to 
eat. — Coroner : "It seems to me deplorable that you did not 
go into the workhouse." Witness : " We wanted the comforts 
of our little home." A juror asked what the comforts were, 
for he only saw a little straw in the corner of the room, the 
windows of which were broken. The witness began to cry, 
and said that they had a quilt and other little things. The 
deceased said he never would go into the workhouse. In sum- 
mer, when the season was good, they sometimes made as much 
as 10s. profit in the week. They then always saved toward 
the next week, which was generally a bad one. In winter 
they made not half so much. For three years they had been 
getting from bad to worse. — Cornelius Collins said that he 
had assisted his father since 1847. They used to work so far 
into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight. Witness 
now had a film over his eyes. Five years ago deceased applied 
to the parish for aid. The relieving officer gave him a 4 lb. 
loaf, and told him if he came again he should get the " stones." 2 ° 



1 One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the 
good of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that they wear 
no " translated " article of dress. See the preface. 

2 This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labor is curiously coin- 
cident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may 
remember. It may perhaps be well to preserve beside this paragraph 
another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the "Morning Post," 
of about a parallel date, Friday, March 10, 1865: — "The salons of 
Mine. C , who did the honors with clever imitative grace and ele- 
gance, were crowded with princes, dukes, marquises, and counts — 
in fact, with the same male company as one meets at the parties of 
the Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys.° Some Kng- 
lish peers and members of Parliament were present, and appeared to 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 39 

That disgusted deceased, and he would have nothing to do with 
them since. They got worse and worse until last Friday week, 
when they had not even a half-penny to buy a candle. Deceased 
then lay down on the straw, and said he could not live till morn- 
ing. — A juror : " You are dying of starvation yourself, and you 
ought to go into the house until the summer." — Witness : " If 
we went in, we should die. When we come out in the summer, 
we should be like people dropped from the sky. No one would 
know us, and we would not have even a room. I could work 
now if I had food, for my sight would get better." Dr. G-. P. 
Walker said deceased died from syncope, from exhaustion from 
want of food. The deceased had had no bedclothes. For four 
months he had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not 
a particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but if 
there had been medical attendance, he might have survived 
the syncope, or fainting. The coroner having remarked upon 
the painful nature of the case, the jury returned the following 
verdict, " That deceased died from exhaustion from want of 
food and the common necessaries of life; also through want 
of medical aid." 



enjoy the animated and dazzling improper scene. On the second floor 
the supper tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That 
your readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of the Parisian 
demi-monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was served to all 
the guests (about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johan- 
nisberg, Laffitte, Tokay, and champagne of the finest vintages were 
served most lavishly throughout the morning. After supper dancing 
was resumed with increased animation, and the ball terminated with a 
chaine diubolique and a cancan d'enfer at seven in the morning. 
(Morning service — ' Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the opening 
eyelids of the Morn.') Here is the menu: — ' Consomme de vol ai lie a 
la Bagration : 1(5 hors-d'oeuvres varies. Bouchees a la Talleyrand. 
Saumons froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de bceuf en Bellevue, timbales 
milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffees. Pates de foies 
gras, buissons d'eerevisses, salades ve'netiennes, gelees blanches aux 
fruits, gateaux mancini, parisiens et parisienues. Fromages glares. 
Ananas. Dessert.' " 



40 SESAME AXD LILIES 

37. "Why would witness not go into the workhouse?" 
you ask. Well, the poor seem to have a prejudice against the 
workhouse which the rich have not ■ for of course every one 
who takes a pension ° from Government goes into the work- 
house on a grand scale : * only the workhouses for the rich do 
not involve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses. 
But the poor like to die independently, it appears ; perhaps if 
we made the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, 
or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them a little 
introductory peculation ° with the public money, their minds 
might be reconciled to the conditions. Meantime, here are the 
facts : we make our relief either so insulting to them, or so 
painful, that they rather die than take it at our hands ; or, 
for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and foolish 
that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not 
knowing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise com- 
passion ; if you did not, such a newspaper paragraph would 
be as impossible in a Christian country as a deliberate assas- 
sination permitted in its public streets. 2 " Christian " did I 

1 Please observe this statement, arid think of it, and consider how it 
happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling a 
week from the country — but no one is ashamed to take a pension of a 
thousand a year. 

2 I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the " Pall Mall Gazette " 
established ; forthe power of the press in the hands of highly educated 
men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed, be- 
come all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor 
will therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my 

I respect for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third 
number, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense 
wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who has taken a 
false turn of thought in the outset, and is following it. regardless of 
consequences. It contained at the end this notable passage : — 

" The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction —aye, and the 
bedstead and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law 
ought to give to outcasts merely as outcasts." I merely put beside 
this expression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 18ft5, a part of 
the message which Isaiah was ordered to ,; lift up his voice like a trum- 
pet" in declaring to the gentlemen of his day: " Ye fast for strife, and 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 41 

say ? Alas, if we were but wholesomely ^-Christian, it would 
be impossible : it is our imaginary Christianity that helps us 
to commit these crimes, for we revel and luxuriate in our faith, 
for the lewd sensation of it ; dressing it up, like everything 
else, in fiction. The dramatic Christianity of the organ and 
aisle, of dawn-service and twilight-revival, — the Christianity 
which we do not fear to mix the mockery of, pictorially, with 
our play about the devil, in our Satanellas, — Roberts, — 
Fausts ; ° chanting hymns through traceried windows for back- 
ground effect, and artistically modulating the " Dio " ° through 
variation on variation of mimicked prayer (while we distribute 
tracts next day, for the benefit of uncultivated swearers, upon 
what we suppose to be the signification of the Third Com- 
mandment) ; — this gas-lighted, and gas-inspired, Christianity, 
we are triumphant in, and draw back the hem ° of our robes 
from the touch of the heretics who dispute it. But to do a 
piece of common Christian righteousness in a plain English 
word or deed ; to make Christian law any rule of life and 
found one National act or hope thereon, — we know too well 
what our faith comes to for that ! You might sooner get 
lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out 

to smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this the fast that I have 
chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor 
that are cast out [margin, ' afflicted 'J to thy house ?" The falsehood 
on which the writer had mentally founded himself, as previously stated 
by him, was this: " To confound the functions of the dispensers of the 
poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is a 
great and pernicious error." This sentence is so accurately and exqui- 
sitely wrong, that its substance must be thus reversed in our minds 
before we can deal with any existing problem of national distress. 
"To understand that the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almo- 
ners of the nation, and should distribute its alms with a gentleness 
and freedom of hand as much greater and franker than that possible 
to individual charity as the collective national wisdom and power may 
be supposed greater than those of any single person, is the foundation 
of all law respecting pauperism." (Since tins was written the " Pall 
Mall Gazette" has become a mere party-paper — like the rest; but it 
writes well, and does more good than mischief on the whole.) 



42 SESAME AXD LILIES 

of your modern English religion. You had better get rid of 
the smoke, and the organ pipes, both : leave them, and the 
Gothic windows, and the painted glass, to the property man ; ° 
give up your carburetted hydrogen ghost ° in one healthy expi- 
ration, and look after Lazarus at the doorstep. For there is 
a true Church wherever one hand meets another helpfully, 
and that is the only holy or Mother Church which ever was, 
or ever shall be. 

38. All these pleasures ° then, and all these virtues, I repeat, 
you nationally despise. You have, indeed, men among you who 
do not ; by whose work, by whose strength, by whose life, by 
whose death, you live, and nev r er thank them. Your wealth, 
your amusement, your pride, would all be alike impossible, but 
for those whom you scorn or forget. The policeman, who is 
walking up and down the black lane all night to watch the 
guilt you have created there ; and may have his brains beaten 
out, and be maimed for life, at any moment, and never be 
thanked ; the sailor wrestling with the sea's rage ; the quiet 
student poring over his book or his vial ; the common worker, 
without praise, and nearly without bread, fulfilling his task as 
your horses drag your carts, hopeless, and spurned of all : these 
are the men by whom England lives ; but they are not the 
nation ; they are only the body and nervous force of it, acting 
still from old habit in a convulsive perseverance, while the 
mind is gone. Our National wish and purpose are only to be 
amused; our National religion is the performance of church 
ceremonies, and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to 
keep the mob quietly at work, while we amuse ourselves ; and 
the necessity for this amusement is fastening on us, as a fever- 
ous disease of parched throat and wandering eyes — senseless, 
dissolute, merciless. How literally that word D/s-Ease, the 
Negation and possibility of Ease, expresses the entire moral 
state of our English Industry and its Amusements ! 

39. When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 43 

out of their work, as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower ; 
— when they are faithfully helpful and compassionate, all their 
emotions become steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the 
soul as the natural pulse to the body. But now, having no 
true business, we pour our whole masculine energy into the 
false business of money-making ; and having no true emotion, 
we must have false emotions dressed up for us to play with, 
not innocently, as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, 
as the idolatrous Jews with their pictures on cavern walls, 
which men had to dig to detect. The justice we do not 
execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage ; for the 
beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute the metamorphosis 
of the pantomime, and (the human nature of us imperatively 
requiring awe and sorrow of some kind) for the noble grief we 
should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we 
should have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the 
police court, and gather the night-dew of the grave. 

40. It is difficult to estimate the true significance of these 
things ; the facts are frightful enough ; — the measure of 
national fault involved in them is perhaps not as great as it 
would at first seem. We permit, or cause, thousands of deaths 
daily, but we mean no harm ; we set fire to houses, and ravage 
peasants' fields, yet we should be sorry to find we had injured 
anybody. We are still kind at heart ; still capable of virtue, 
but only as children are. Chalmers, at the end of his long 
life, having had much power with the public, being plagued in 
some serious matter by a reference to " public opinion," uttered 
the impatient exclamation, " The public is just a great baby ! " 
And the reason that I have allowed all these graver subjects 
of thought to mix themselves up with an inquiry into methods 
of reading, is that, the more I see of our national faults or 
miseries, the more they resolve themselves into conditions of 
childish illiterateness and want of education in the most 
ordinary habits of thought. It is, I repeat, not vice, not 



44 SESAME AND LILIES 

selfishness, not clulness of brain, which we have to lament ; 
but an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, only differing from 
the true schoolboy's in its incapacity of being helped, because 
it acknowledges no master. 

41. There is a curious type of us given in one of the lovely, 
neglected works of the last of our great painters. It is a 
drawing of Kirkby Lonsdale ° churchyard, and of its brook, and 
valley, and hills, and folded morning sky beyond. And unmind- 
ful alike of these, and of the dead who have left these for other 
valleys and for other skies, a group of schoolboys have piled 
their little books upon a grave, to strike them off with stones. 
So, also, we play with the words of the dead that would teach 
us, and strike them far from us with our bitter, reckless will ; 
little thinking that those leaves which the wind scatters had 
been piled, not only upon a gravestone, but upon the seal 
of an enchanted vault — nay, the gate of a great city of sleep- 
ing kings, who would awake for us, and walk with us, if we 
knew but how to call them by their names. How often, even 
if we lift the marble entrance gate, do we but wander among 
those old kings in their repose, and finger the robes they lie in, 
and stir the crowns on their foreheads ; and still they are silent 
to us, and seem but a dusty imagery, because we know not the 
incantation ° of the heart that would wake them ; — which, if 
they once heard, they would start up to meet us, in their power 
of long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us ; and as 
the fallen kings of Hades ° meet the newly fallen, saying, " Art 
thou also become weak as we — art thou also become one of 
us?" so would these kings, with their undimmed, unshaken 
diadems, meet us, saying, " Art thou also become pure and 
mighty of heart as we ? art thou also become one of us ? " 

42. Mighty of heart, mighty of mind — " magnanimous " — 
to be this, is, indeed, to be great in life ; to become this in- 
creasingly, is, indeed, to "advance in life," — in life itself, not 
in the trappings of it. My friends, do you remember that old 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 45 

Scythian custom, when the head of a house died ? How he 
was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and car- 
ried about to his friends' houses ; and each of them placed him 
at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence ? Suppose 
it were offered to you in plain words, as it is offered to you in 
dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honor gradually, 
while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were 
this : You shall die slowly ; your blood shall daily grow cold, 
your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusted 
group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink 
through the earth into the ice of Caina ; ° but, day by day, 
your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher 
chariots, and have more orders on its breast — crowns on its 
head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout 
round it, crowd after it up and down the streets ; build palaces 
for it ; feast with it at their tables' heads all the night long ; 
your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, 
and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and 
the furrow of the crown-edge on the skull ; — no more. "Would 
you take the offer, verbally made by the death-angel ? Would 
the meanest among us take it, think you ? Yet practically and 
verily we grasp at it every one of us, in a measure ; many of 
us grasp at it in its fulness of horror. Every man accepts it, 
who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is ; 
who means only that he is to get more horses, and more foot- 
men, and more fortune, and more public honor, and — not 
more personal soul. He only is advancing in life, whose heart 
is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, 
whose spirit is entering into Living 1 peace. And the men who 
have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth 
— they, and they only. All other kingships, so far as they 
are true, are only the practical issue and expression of theirs ; 

1 u rb ?• (pp6v7]/j.a rod irvevjxaTos far] Kal elprjurjV 



46 SESAME AXD LILIES 

if less than this, they are either dramatic royalties, — costly 
shows, set off, indeed, with real jewels instead of tinsel — but 
still only the toys of nations, or else they are no royalties at 
all, but tyrannies, or the mere active and practical issue of 
national folly ; for which reason I have said of them elsewhere, 
" Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the disease 
of others, the harness of some, the burdens of more." 

43. But I have no words for the wonder with which I hear 
Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful men, as if 
governed nations were a personal property, and might be 
bought and sold, or otherwise acquired, as sheep, of whose 
flesh their king was to feed, and whose fleece he was to gather ; 
as if Achilles J ° indignant epithet of base kings, " people-eat- 
ing," were the constant and proper title of all monarchs \ and 
enlargement of a king's dominion meant the same thing as the 
increase of a private man's estate ! Kings who think so, how- 
ever powerful, can no more be the true kings of the nation 
than gadflies are the kings of a horse ; they suck it, and may 
drive it wild, but do not guide it. They and their courts and 
their armies are, if one could see clearly, only a large species 
of marsh mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, 
bandmastered trumpeting, in the summer air; the twilight 
being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more wholesome, 
for its glittering mists of midge companies. The true kings, 
meanwhile, ride quietly, if at all, and hate ruling ; too many of 
them make il gran rifiuto ;° and if they do not, the mob, as 
soon as they are likely to become useful to it, is pretty sure to 
make its gran rifiuto of them. 

44. Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some day, 
if ever day comes when he will estimate his dominion by the 
force of it, — not the geographical boundaries. It matters 
very little whether Trent cuts you a cantel out° here, or Ehine 
rounds you a castle less there. But it does matter to you, king 
of men, whether you can verily say to this man " Go," and he 



OF KINGS 7 TREASURIES 47 

goeth, and to another, " Come," and he cometh. Whether you 
can turn your people, as you can Trent — and where it is that 
you bid them come, and where go. It matters to you, king of 
men, whether your people hate you, and die by you, or love you, 
and live by you. You may measure your dominion by multi- 
tudes, better than by miles ; and count degrees of love-latitude, 
not from, but to, a wonderfully warm and infinite equator. 

45. Measure ! — nay, you cannot measure. Who shall 
measure the difference between the power of those who " do 
and teach," ° and who are greatest in the kingdoms of earth, 
as of heaven — and the power of those who undo, and consume 
— whose power, at the fullest, is only the power of the moth 
and the rust ? Strange ! to think how the Moth-kings lay up 
treasures for the moth ; and the Rust-kings, who are to their 
people's strength as rust to armor, lay up treasures for the rust ; 
and the Robber-kings, treasures for the robber ; but how few 
kings have ever laid up treasures that needed no guarding — 
treasures of which, the more thieves there were, the better ! 
Broidered robe,° only to be rent ; helm and sword, only to be 
dimmed; jewel and gold, only to be scattered; — there have 
been three kinds of kings who have gathered these. Suppose 
there ever should arise a Fourth order of kings, who had read, 
in some obscure writing of long ago, that there was a Fourth 
kind of treasure, which the jewel and gold could not equal, 
neither should it be valued with pure gold. A web made fair 
in the weaving, by Athena's shuttle ; an armor, forged in 
divine fire by Vulcanian force ; a gold to be mined in the very 
sun's red heart, where he sets over the Delphian cliffs, — deep 
pictured tissue ; ° — impenetrable armor ; — potable gold ; — the 
three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and Thought, still calling 
to us, and waiting at the posts of our doors, to lead us, with 
their winged power, and guide us, with their unerring eyes, by 
the path which no fowl knoweth, and* which the vulture's eye 
has not seen ! Suppose kings should ever arise, who heard and 



48 SESAJte-Aifo h(Li^b * •'-" 

believed this word, and at last gathered and brought forth 
treasures of — Wisdom — for their people ? 

46. Think what an amazing business that would be ! How 
inconceivable, in the state of our present national wisdom ! 
That we should bring up our peasants to a book exercise instead 
of a bayonet exercise ! — organize, drill, maintain with pay, and 
good generalship, armies of thinkers, instead of armies of 
stabbers ! ° — find national amusement in reading-rooms as well 
as rifle -grounds ; give prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well as 
for a leaden splash on a target. What an absurd idea it seems, 
put fairly in words, that the wealth of the capitalists of civilized 
nations should ever come to support literature instead of war ! 

47. Have yet patience with me, while I read you a single 
sentence out of the only book, properly to be called a book, 
that I have yet written myself, the, one that will stand (if any- 
thing stand) surest and longest of all work of mine : — 

" It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe 
that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which supports unjust wars. 
Just wars do not need so much money to support them ; for most 
of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust 
war, men's bodies and souls have both to be bought, and the best 
tools of war for them besides, which makes such war costly to the 
maximum ; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry sus- 
picion, between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough 
in all their multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with ; as, at 
present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions 
sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably light crop, 
half thorns and half aspen leaves. sown, reaped, and granaried by 
the ' science ' of the modern political economists, teaching covetous- 
ness instead of truth). And all unjust war being supportable, if 
not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these 
loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear 
to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary 
root of the war ; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole 
nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and 
bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and 
punishment to each person." 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 49 

48. France and England literally, observe, buy panic of 
each other ; they pay, each of them, for ten thousand-thousand 
pounds' worth of terror, a year. Now suppose, instead of buy- 
ing these ten millions' worth of panic annually, they made up 
their minds to be at peace with each other, and buy ten mill- 
ions' worth of knowledge annually ; and that each nation 
spent its ten thousand-thousand pounds a year in founding 
royal libraries, royal art galleries, royal museums, royal gar- 
dens, and places of rest. Might it not be better somewhat for 
both French and English 1 

49. It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass. Never- 
theless, I hope it will not be long before royal or national li- 
braries will be founded in every considerable city, with a royal 
series of books in them ; the same series in every one of them, 
chosen books, the best in every kind, prepared for that national 
series in the most perfect way possible ; their text printed all 
on leaves of equal size, broad of margin, and divided into pleas- 
ant volumes, light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and thor- 
ough as examples of binders' work; and that these great 
libraries will be accessible to all clean and orderly persons at 
all times of the day and evening ; strict law being enforced for 
this cleanliness and quietness. 

50. I could shape for you other plans, for art galleries, and 
for natural history galleries, and for many precious — many, it 
seems to me, needful — things ; but this book plan is the easi- 
est and needfullest, and would prove a considerable tonic to 
what we call our British Constitution, which has fallen dropsi- 
cal of late, and has an evil thirst, and evil hunger, and wants 
healthier feeding. You have got its corn laws repealed for 
it \ try if you cannot get corn laws established for it, dealing 
in a better bread ; — bread made of that old enchanted Arabian 
grain, the Sesame, which opens doors ; — doors, not of rob- 
bers',° but of Kings' Treasuries. 



50 SESAME AXI) LILIES 



Note to § 30 ° 

Respecting the increase of rent by the deaths of the poor, 
for evidence of which, see the preface to the Medical Officer's 
report to the Privy Council, just published, there are sugges- 
tions in its preface which will make some stir among us, I 
fancy, respecting which let me note these points following : — 

There are two theories on the subject of land now abroad, 
and in contention : both false. 

The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always existed, 
and must continue to exist, a certain number of hereditarily 
sacred persons to whom the earth, air, and water of the world 
belong, as personal property ; of which earth, air, and water, 
these persons may, at their pleasure, permit or forbid the rest 
of the human race to eat, to breathe, or to drink. This theory 
is not for many years longer tenable. The adverse theory is 
that a division of the land of the world among the mob of the 
world would immediately elevate the said mob into sacred per- 
sonages : that houses would then build themselves, and com 
grow of itself : and that everybody would be able to live with- 
out doing any work for his living. This theory would also be 
found highly untenable in practice. 

It will, however, require some rough experiments and rougher 
catastrophes, before the generality of persons will be convinced 
that no law concerning anything — least of all concerning land, 
for either holding or dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it 
low — would be of the smallest ultimate use to the people, so 
long as the general contest for life, and for the means of life, 
remains one of mere brutal competition. That contest, in an 
unprincipled nation, will take one deadly form or another, 
whatever laws you make against it. For instance, it would 
be an entirely wholesome law for England, if it could be car- 
ried, that maximum limits should be assigned to incomes 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES 51 

according to classes ; and that every nobleman's income should 
be paid to him as a fixed salary or pension by the nation ; and 
not squeezed by him in variable sums, at discretion, out of the 
tenants of his land. But if you could get such a law passed 
to-morrow, and if, which would be further necessary, you could 
fix the value of the assigned incomes by making a given weight 
of pure bread for a given sum, a twelve-month would not pass 
before another currency would have been tacitly established, 
and the power of accumulated wealth would have re-asserted 
itself in some other article, or some other imaginary sign. 
There is only one cure for public distress, and that is public 
education, directed to make men thoughtful, merciful, and just. 
There are, indeed, many laws conceivable which would gradu- 
ally better and strengthen the national temper ; but for the 
most part, they are such as the national temper must be much 
bettered before it would bear. A nation in its youth may be 
helped by laws, as a weak child by back-boards, but when it is 
old it cannot that way strengthen its crooked spine. 

And besides ; the problem of land, at its worst, is a bye one ; ° 
distribute the earth as you will, the principal question remains 
inexorable, — Who is to dig it? Which of us, in brief word, 
is to do the hard and dirty work for the rest — and for what pay ? 
Who is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for what pay? 
Who is to do no work, and for what pay? And there are curi- 
ous moral and religious questions connected with these. How 
far is it lawful to suck a portion of the soul out of a great many 
persons, in order to put the abstracted physical quantities to- 
gether and make one very beautiful or ideal soul? If we had 
to deal with mere blood instead of spirit (and the thing might 
literally be done — as it has been done with infants before now) — 
so that it were possible by taking a certain quantity of blood from 
the arms of a given number of the mob and putting it all into 
one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentleman of him, 
the thing would of course be managed ; but secretly, I should 



52 SESAME AND LILIES 

conceive. But now, because it is brain and soul that we abstract, 
not visible blood, it can be done quite openly, and we live, we 
gentlemen, on delicatest prey, after the manner of weasels ; ° that 
is to say, we keep a certain number of clowns digging and 
ditching, and generally stupefied, in order that we, being fed 
gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling to ourselves. 
Yet there is a great deal to be said for this. A highly-bred 
and trained English, French, Austrian, or Italian gentleman 
(much more a lady), is a great production, — a better produc- 
tion than most statues; being beautifully colored as well as 
shaped, and plus all the brains ; a glorious thing to look at, a 
wonderful thing to talk to ; and you cannot have it, any more 
than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice of much contrib- 
uted life. And it is, perhaps, better to build a beautiful human 
creature than a beautiful dome or steeple — and more delightful 
to look up reverently to a creature far above us, than to a wall ; 
only the beautiful human creature will have some duties to do 
in return — duties of living belfry and rampart — of which * 
presently. 



II 

OF QUEENS' GARDENS 



LECTURE II 

LILIES 

OF queens' gardens 

"Be thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made 
cheerful, and bloom as a lily ; and the barren places of Jordan 
shall run wild with wood." — Isaiah xxxv. 1. (Septuagint.) 

51.° It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel 
of one previously given, that I should shortly state to you my 
general intention in both. The questions specially proposed to 
you in the first, namely, How and What to Read, rose out of a 
far deeper one, which it was my endeavor to make you propose 
earnestly to yourselves, namely, Why to Read. I want you to 
feel,° with me, that whatever advantage we possess in the pres- 
ent day in the diiiusic^-ef-tducation~ahd of literature, can only 
be rightly used by any of us when we have apprehended clearly 
what education is to lead to, and literature to teach. I wish 
you to see that both well-directed moral training and well- 
chosen reading lead to the possession of a power over the ill- 
guided and illiterate, which is, according to the measure of it, 
in the truest sense, kingly ; conferring indeed the purest king- 
ship that can exist among men. Too many other kingships 
(however distinguished by visible insignia ° or material power) 
being either spectral, or tyrannous ; — spectral — that is to say, 
aspects and shadows only of royalty, hollow as death, and 
which only the " likeness of a kingly crown ° have on " \ or 

55 



56 SESAME J XI J LILIES 

else tyrannous — that is to say, substituting their own will for 
the law of justice and love by which all true kings rule. 

52. There is, then, I repeat — and as I want to leave this 
idea with you, I begin with it, and shall end with it, — only 
one pure kind of kingship ; ° an inevitable and eternal kind, 
crowned or not : the kingship, namely, which consists in a 
stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful state, than that 
of others; enabling you, therefore, to guide, or to raise them. 
Observe that word " State " ; we have got into a loose way of 
using it. It means literally the standing and stability of a 
thing ; and you have the full force of it in the derived word 
" statue" — "the immovable thing." A king's majesty or 
"state," then, and the right of his kingdom to be called a 
state, depends on the movelessness of both : — without tremor, 
without quiver of balance; established and enthroned upon a 
foundation of eternal law which nothing can alter, nor over- 
throw. 

53. Believing that all literature and all education are only 
useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and 
therefore kingly, power, — first, over ourselves, and, through 
ourselves, over all around us, — I am now going to ask you to 
consider with me, farther, what special portion or kind of this 
royal authority, arising out of noble education, may rightly be 
possessed by women ; and how far they also are called to a true 
queenly power, — not in their households merely, but over all 
within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly under- 
stood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order 
and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us 
in speaking of the territories over which each of them reigned, 
as " Queens' Gardens." ° 

54. And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper 
question, which — strange though this may seem — remains 
among many of us yet quite undecided, in spite of its infinite 
importance. 



GARDENS 57 

We cannot determine what the queenly power of women 
should be, until we are agreed what their ordinary power 
should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them 
for any widely-extending duty, until we are agreed what is their 
true constant duty. And there never was a time when wilder 
words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respect- 
ing this question — quite vital to all social happiness. The 
relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different 
capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been yet 
estimated with entire consent. We hear of the " mission " and 
of the " rights " of Woman, as if these could ever be separate 
from the mission and the rights of Man ; — as if she and her 
.lord were creatures of independent kind, and of irreconcilable 
claim. This, at least, is wrong. And, not less wrong — per- 
haps even more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far 
what I hope to prove) — is the idea that woman is only the 
shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a thought- 
less and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her 
weakness, by the pre-eminence of his fortitude. 

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her 
who was made to be the helpmate ° of man. As if he could be 
helped effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave ! 

55. Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear 
and harmonious idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) of 
what womanly mind and virtue are in power and office, with 
respect to man's ; and how their relations, rightly accepted, aid, 
and increase, the vigor, and honor, and authority of both. 

And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture : 
namely, that the first use of education was to enable us to con 
suit with the wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest 
difficulty. That to use books rightly, was to go to them for 
help : to appeal to them when our own knowledge and power 
of thought failed : to be led by them into wider sight, — purer 
conception, — than our own, and receive from them the united 



58 SESAME AND LILIES 






sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our 
solitary and unstable opinion. 

Let us do this now. Let us see whether the greatest, the 
wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages, are agreed in any wise on 
this point : let us hear the testimony they have left respecting 
what they held to be the true dignity of woman, and her mode 
of help to man. 

56. And first let us take Shakespeare. 

Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no heroes ; ° — 
he has only heroines. There is not one entirely heroic figure 
in all his plays, except the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, 
exaggerated for the purposes of the stage ; and the still slighter 
"Valentine in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." In his 
labored and perfect plays you have no hero. Othello ° would 
have been one, if his simplicity had not been so great as to 
leave him the prey of every base practice round him ; but he 
is the only example even approximating to the heroic type. 
Coriolanus ° — Csesar — Antony ° stand in flawed strength, and 
fall by their vanities ; — Hamlet ° is indolent, and drowsily 
speculative ; Romeo ° an impatient boy ; the Merchant of 
Venice languidly submissive to adverse fortune; Kent, in 
" King Lear," is entirely noble at heart, but too rough and 
unpolished to be of true use at the critical time, and he sinks 
into the office of a servant only. Orlando, no less noble, is 
yet the despairing toy of chance, followed, comforted, saved, by 
Rosalind. Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a per- 
fect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope, and errorless pur- 
pose; Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, 
Queen Catherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, 
and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless ; con- 
ceived in the highest heroic type of humanity. 

57. Then observe, secondly, 

The catastrophe ° of every play is caused always by the folly 
or fault of a man ; the redemption, if there be any, is by the 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 59 

wisdom and virtue of a woman, and, failing that, there is none. 
The catastrophe of King Lear ° is owing to his want of judg- 
ment, his impatient vanity, his misunderstanding of his children ; 
the virtue of his one true daughter would have saved him from 
all the injuries of the others, unless he had cast her away from 
him ; as it is, she all but saves him. 

Of Othello ° I need not trace the tale ; nor the one weakness 
of his so mighty love ; nor the inferiority of his perceptive in- 
tellect to that even of the second woman character in the play, 
the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against his error : — 

4 1 murderous coxcomb ! ° what should such a fool 
Do with so good a wife ? " 

In " Romeo and Juliet," the wise and brave stratagem of the 
wife is brought to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience ° of her 
husband. In " The Winter's Tale," ° and in " Cymbeline," ° the 
happiness and existence of two princely households, lost through 
long years, and imperilled to the death by the folly and obsti- 
nacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last by the queenly 
patience and wisdom of the wives. In " Measure for Measure," ° 
the foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the 
brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine 
purity of a woman. In " Coriolanus," ° the mother's counsel, 
acted upon in time, would have saved her son from all evil ; 
his momentary forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her prayer, at 
last, granted, saves him — not, indeed, from death, but from 
the curse of living as the destroyer of his country. 

And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickle- 
ness of a lover who is a mere wicked child 1 — of Helena, against 
tho petulance and insult of a careless youth 1 — of the patience 
of Hero, the passion of Beatrice, and the calmly devoted wis- 
dom of the " unlessoned girl," ° who appears among the help- 
lessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as 
a gentle angel, bringing courage and safety by her presence, and 



60 SESAME AXD LILIES 

defeating the worst malignities of crime by what women are 
fancied most to fail in, — precision and accuracy of thought 1 

58. Observe, further, among all the principal figures in 
Shakespeare's plays, there is only one weak woman — 
Ophelia ; ° and it is because she fails Hamlet at the critical 
moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be, a guide to 
him when he needs her most, that all the bitter catastrophe 
follows. Finally, though there are three wicked women among 
the principal figures, Lady Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril, 
they are felt at once to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary 
laws of life ; fatal in their influence also, in proportion to the 
power for good which they have abandoned. 

Such, in broad light, is Shakespeare's testimony to the posi- 
tion and character of women in human life. He represents 
them as infallibly faithful and wise counsellors, — incorruptibly 
just and pure examples, — strong always to sanctify, even when 
they cannot save. 

59. Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the 
nature of man, '■ — still less in his understanding of the causes 
and courses of fate, — but only as the writer who has given 
us the broadest view of the conditions and modes of ordinary 
thought in modern society, I ask you next to receive the witness 
of Walter Scott. 

I put aside his merely romantic prose writings ° as of no 
value ; and though the early romantic poetry is very beautiful, 
its testimony is of no weight, other than that of a boy's ideal. 
But his true works, studied from Scottish life, bear a true wit- 
ness ; and, in the whole range of these, there are but three men 
who reach the heroic type 1 — Dandie Dinmont, Rob Roy,° 

I I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have 
noticed the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great 
characters of men in the Waverley novels — the selfishness and narrow- 
ness of thought in Redgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in 
Edward Glendinning, and the like; and I ought to have noticed that 
there are several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the 



OF QUEENS 1 GARDENS 61 

and Claverhouse ; ° of these, one is a border farmer ; another a 
freebooter • the third a soldier in a bad cause. And these 
touch the ideal of heroism only in their courage and faith, 
together with a strong, but uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, 
intellectual power ; while his younger men are the gentlemanly 
playthings of fantastic fortune, and only by aid (or accident) of 
that fortune, survive, not vanquish, the trials they involuntarily 
sustain. Of any disciplined or consistent character, earnest in 
a purpose wisely conceived, or dealing with forms of hostile 
evil, definitely challenged and resolutely subdued, there is no 
trace in his conceptions of young men. Whereas, in his imagi- 
nations of women, — in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of 
Flora Maclvor, Rose Bradwardine,° Catherine Seyton, Diana 
Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee,° 
and Jeanie Deans, — with endless varieties of grace, tender- 
ness, and intellectual power, we find in all a quite infallible 
sense of dignity and justice ; a fearless, instant, and untiring 
self-sacrifice, to even the appearance of duty, much more to its 
real claims ; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply-restrained 
affection, which does infinitely more than protect its objects 
from a momentary error ; it gradually forms, animates, and 
exalts the characters of the unworthy lovers, until, at the close 
of the tale, we are just able, and no more, to take patience in 
hearing of their unmerited success. 

So that, in all cases, with Scott as with Shakespeare, it is 
the woman who watches over, teaches, and guides the youth ; 
it is never, by any chance, the youth who watches over, or 
educates, his mistress. 

60. Next, take, though more briefly, graver testimony — 
that of the great Italians and Greeks. You know well the 
plan of Dante's ° great poem — that it is a love-poem to his 

backgrounds; three — let us accept joyously this courtesy to England 
and her soldiers — are English officers: Colonel Gardiner, Colonel 
Talbot, and Colonel Mannering. 



62 SESAME AND LILIES 

dead lady ; a song of praise for her watch over his soul. Stoop- 
ing only to pity, never to love, she yet saves him from destruc- 
tion — saves him from hell. He is going eternally astray in 
despair ; she comes down from heaven to his help, and through- 
out the ascents of Paradise is his teacher, interpreting for him 
the most difficult truths, divine and human ; and leading him, 
with rebuke upon rebuke, from star to star. 

I do not insist upon Dante's conception ; if I began, I could 
not cease : besides, you might think this a wild imagination of 
one poet's heart. So I will rather read to you a few verses of 
the deliberate writing of a knight of Pisa ° to his living lady, 
wholly characteristic of the feeling tff all the noblest men of the 
thirteenth, or early fourteenth, century, preserved among many 
other such records of knightly honor and love, which Dante 
Rossetti has gathered for us from among the early Italian 
poets. 

" For lo ! thy law is passed 

That this my love should manifestly be 
To serve and honor thee : 

And so I do ; and my delight is full, 

Accepted for the servant of thy rule. 

" Without almost, I am all rapturous, 
Since thus my will was set : 
To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence : 
Nor ever seems it anything could rouse 
A pain or a regret. 
But on thee dwells my every thought and sense 
Considering that from thee all virtues spread 

As from a fountain head, — 
That in thy gift is wisdom's best avail, 

And honor ivithout fail ; 
With whom each sovereign good dwells separate, 
Fulfilling the perfection of thy state. 

u Lady, since I conceived 
Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart, 
My life has been apart 




OF QUEENS' GARDENS 63 

In shining brightness and the place of truth ; 

Which till that time, good sooth, 
Groped among shadows in a darkened place, 

Where many hours and days 
It hardly ever had remembered good. 

But now my servitude . - ,1 

Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest. 

A man from a wild beast 
Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived. 1 ' 

61. You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight would have 
had a lower estimate of women than this Christian lover. His 
spiritual subjection to them was indeed not so absolute ; but 
as regards their own personal character, it was only because you 
could not have followed me so easily, that I did not take the 
Greek women instead of Shakespeare's ; and instance, for chief 
ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and 
wife's- heart of Andromache ; ° the divine, yet rejected wisdom 
of Cassandra ; ° the playful kindness and simple princess-life of 
happy Nausicaa ; ° the housewifely calm of that of Penelope, 
with its watch upon the sea ; the ever patient, fearless, hope- 
lessly devoted piety of the sister and daughter, in Antigone • • 
the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like and silent; and 
finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the- 
soul of the Greeks in the return from her grave of that Alcestis, 
who, to save her husband, had passed calmly through the bit- 
terness of death. 

62. Now I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind 
upon you if I had time. I would take Chaucer, and show you 
why he wrote a Legend of Good Women, but no Legend of 
Good Men. I would take Spenser, and show you how all his 
fairy knights are sometimes deceived and sometimes vanquished ; 
but the soul of Una ° is never darkened, and the spear of Brito- 
mart ° is never broken. Nay, I could go back into the mythical 
teaching of the most ancient times, and show you how the great 
people, — by one of whose princesses it was appointed that the 



64 SESAME A2TD LILIES 

Lawgiver of all the earth ° should be educated, rather than by 
his own kindred : — how that great Egyptian people, wisest 
then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a 
woman ; and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle ; 
and how the name and the form of that spirit, adopted, be- 
lieved, and obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena of the 
olive-helm, ° and cloudy shield, to faith in whom you owe, down 
to this date, whatever you hold most precious in art, in literature, 
or in types of national virtue. 

63. But I will not wander into this distant and mythical 
element ; I will only ask you to give its legitimate value to the 
testimony of these great poets and men of the world, — con- 
sistent, as you see it is, on this head. I will ask you whether 
it can be supposed that these men, in the main work of their 
lives, are amusing themselves with a fictitious and idle view of 
the relations between man and woman ; nay, worse than ficti- 
tious or idle ; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it 
were possible ; but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to 
our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable. 
The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to think for 
herself. The man is always to be the wiser ; he is to be the 
thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and discretion/ as 
in power. 

64. Is it not somewhat important to make up our minds 
on this matter ? Are all these great men mistaken, or are we 1 
Are Shakespeare and iEschylus, Dante and Homer, merely 
dressing dolls for us ; or, worse than dolls, unnatural visions, 
the realization of which, were it possible, would bring anarchy 
into all households and ruin into all affections? Nay, if you 
can suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts given by the 
human heart itself. In all Christian ages ° which have been 
remarkable for their purity of progress, there has been absolute 
yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. I 
say obedient; — not merely enthusiastic and worshipping in 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 65 

imagination, but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved 
woman, however young, not only the encouragement, the praise, 
and the reward of all toil, but, so far as any choice is open, or 
any question difficult of decision, the direction of all toil. That 
chivalry, to the abuse and dishonor of which are attributable 
primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt 
and ignoble in domestic relations ; and to the original purity 
and power of which we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, 
of love ; — that chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of 
honorable life, assumes the subjection of the young knight 
to the command — should it even be the command in caprice ° 
— of his lady. It assumes this, because its masters knew 
that the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught and 
knightly heart is this of blind service to its lady : that where 
that true faith and captivity are not, all wayward and wicked 
passion must be ; and that in this rapturous obedience to 
the single love of his youth, is the sanctification of all man's 
strength, and the continuance of all his purposes. And this, 
not because such obedience would be safe, or honorable, were 
it ever rendered to the unworthy ; but because it ought to be 
impossible for every noble youth — it is impossible for every 
one rightly trained — to love any one whose gentle counsel he 
cannot trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesitate to 
obey. 

65. I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I 
think it should commend itself at once to your knowledge of 
what has been, and to your feeling of what should be. You 
cannot think that the buckling on ° of the knight's armor by 
his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It. 
is the type of an eternal truth — that the soul's armor is never 
well set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it ; and 
it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood 
fails. Know you not those lovely lines — I w r ould they were 
learned by all youthful ladies of England — 



66 SESAME AND LILIES 

" Ah, wasteful woman !° — she who may 

On her sweet self set her own price, 
Knowing he cannot choose but pay — 

How has she cheapened Paradise ! 
How given for naught her priceless gift, 

How spoil'd the bread and spilPd the wine, 
Which, spent with due respective thrift, 

Had made brutes men, and men divine ! " 1 

66. Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I 
believe you will accept. But what we too often doubt is the 
fitness of the continuance of such a relation throughout the 
whole of human life. We think it right in the lover and mis- 
tress, not in the husband and wife. That is to say, we think 
that a reverent and tender duty is due to one whose affection 
we still doubt, and whose character we as yet do but partially 
and distantly discern ; and that this reverence and duty are to 
be withdrawn, when the affection has become wholly and limit- 
lessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and tried 
that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness of our lives. 
Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as how unreason- 
able 1 Do you not feel that marriage, — when it is marriage 
at all, — is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of 
temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love ? 

67. But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding func- 
tion of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? 
Simply in that it is a guiding, not a determining, function. 
Let me try to show you briefly how these pow r ers seem to be 
rightly distinguishable. 

We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of 
the " superiority " of one sex to the other, as if they could be 
compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not : 

1 Coventry Patmore. You cannot read him too often or too care- 
fully ; as far as I know, he is the only living poet who always 
strengthens and purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly 
always depress, and discourage, the imagination they deeply seize. 



OF QUEENS' GAHDEJVS 67 

each completes the other, and is completed by the other : they 
are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both 
depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the 
other only can give. 

68. Now their separate characters are briefly these. The 
man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently 
the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intel- 
lect is for speculation and invention ; his energy for adventure, 
for war, and for conquest wherever war is just, wherever con- 
quest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for 
battle, — and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but 
for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the 
qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great 
function is Praise ; she enters into no contest, but infallibly 
adjudges the crown of contest. By her office, and place, she is 
protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his 
rough work in the open world, must encounter all peril and 
trial : — to him, therefore, must be the failure, the offence, the 
inevitable error : often he must be wounded, or subdued ; often 
misled ; and ahvays hardened. But he guards the woman from 
all this ; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself 
has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of 
error or offence. This is the true nature of home — it is the 
place of Peace ; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from 
all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is 
not home ; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate 
into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or 
hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband 
or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home ; it is then 
only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, 
and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal 
temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household 
Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they 
can receive with love, — so far as it is this, and roof and fire 



68 SESAME AND LILIES 

are types only of a nobler shade and light, — shade as of the rock 
in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos ° in the stormy sea ; 
— so far it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of Home. 

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round 
her. The stars only may be over her head ; the glow-worm in 
the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot : but home 
is yet wherever she is ; and for a noble woman it stretches far 
round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or painted with ver- 
milion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else were 
homeless. 

69. This, then, I believe to be, — will you not admit it to 
be ? — the woman's true place and power. But do not you see 
that to fulfil this, she must — as far as one can use such terms 
of a human creature — be incapable of error? So far as she 
rules, all must be right, or nothing is. She must be enduringly, 
incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise — wise, not for 
self-development, but for self-renunciation : wise, not that she 
may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail 
from his side : wise, not with the narrowness of insolent and 
loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely 
variable, because infinitely applicable, modesty of service — the 
true changefulness of woman. In that great sense — "La 
donna e mobile," ° not " Qual puim' al vento ; " ° no, nor yet 
"Variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made;" 
but variable as the light, manifold in fair and serene division, 
that it may take the color of all that it falls upon, and exalt it. 

70.° II. I have been trying, thus far, to show you what 
should be the place, and what the power, of woman. Now, 
secondly, we ask, What kind of education is to fit her for these ? 

And if you indeed think this a true conception of her office 
and dignity, it will not be difficult to trace the course of edu- 
cation which would fit her for the one, and raise her to the 
other. 

The first of our duties to her — no thoughtful persons now 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 69 

doubt this — is to secure for her such physical training and 
exercise as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty ; 
the highest refinement of that beauty being unattainable with- 
out splendor of activity and of delicate strength. To perfect 
her beauty, I say, and increase its power ; it cannot be too power- 
ful, nor shed its sacred light too far : only remember that all 
physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without a corre- 
sponding freedom of heart. There are two passages of that 
poet,° who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all others — 
not by power, but by exquisite Tightness — which point you to 
the source, and describe to you in a few syllables, the comple- 
tion of womanly beauty. I will read the introductory stanzas, 
but the last is the one I wish you specially to notice : — 

44 Three years she grew in sun and shower, 
Then Nature said, ' A lovelier flower 

4 On earth was never sown : 
4 This child I to myself will take ; 
4 She shall be mine, and I will make 

' A lady of my own. 

44 * Myself will to my darling be 
4 Both law and impulse ; and with me 

4 The girl, in rock and plain, 
4 In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
4 Shall feel an overseeing power, 
4 To kindle, or restrain. 

44 4 The floating clouds their state shall lend 
4 To her ; for her the willow bend ; 

4 Nor shall she fail to see 
4 Even in the motions of the storm, 
4 Grace that should mould the maiden's form 

4 By silent sympathy. 

44 4 And vital feelings of delight 
4 Shall rear her form to stately height, 
4 Her virgin bosom swell ; 



70 SESAME AND LILIES 

1 Such thoughts to Lucy I will give, 
4 While she and I together live, 
1 Here in this happy dell.' " * 

"Vital feeling of delight," observe. There are deadly feelings 
of delight, but the natural ones are vital, necessary to very life. 

And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. 
Do not think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make 
her happy. There is not one restraint you put on a good girl's 
nature — there is not one check you give to her instincts of 
affection or of effort — which will not be indelibly written 
on her features, with a hardness which is all the more painful 
because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of innocence, 
and the charm from the brow of virtue. 

71. This for the means : now note the end. Take from 
the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description of womanly 
beauty — 

" A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records, promises as sweet." 

The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only 
consist in that majestic peace which is founded in the memory 
of happy and useful years, — full of sweet records ; and from 
the joining of this with that yet more majestic childishness, 
which is still full of change and promise ; — opening always — 
modest at once, and bright, with hope of better things to be 
won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where there is 
still that promise. 

72. Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, 
and then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and 
temper her mind with all knowledge and thoughts which tend 
to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its natural 
tact of love. 

1 Observe, it is "Nature" who is speaking throughout, and who 
says, " while she and I together live." 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 71 

All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her 
to understand, and even to aid, the work of men : and yet it 
should be given, not as knowledge, — not as if it were, or could 
be, for her, an object to know ; but only to feel, and to judge. 
It is of no moment, as a matter of pride or perfectness in*her- 
self, whether she knows many languages or one ; but it is of 
the utmost, that she should be able to show kindness to a 
stranger, and to understand the sweetness of a stranger's tongue. 
It is of no moment to her own worth or dignity that she should 
be acquainted with this science or that ; but it is of the highest 
that she should be trained in habits of accurate thought ■ that 
she should understand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the 
loveliness of natural laws ; and follow at least some one path 
of scientific attainment, as far as to the threshold of that bitter 
Valley of Humiliation, into which only the wisest and bravest 
of men can descend, owning themselves forever children, gather- 
ing pebbles on a boundless shore. It is of little consequence 
how many positions of cities she knows, or how many dates of 
events, or names of celebrated persons — it is not the object of 
education ° to turn the woman into a dictionary ; but it is deeply 
necessary that she should be taught to enter with her whole 
personality into the history she reads ; to picture the passages 
of it vitally in her own bright imagination ; to apprehend, with 
her fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dramatic rela- 
tions, which the historian too often only eclipses by his reason- 
ing, and disconnects by his arrangement : it is for her to trace 
the hidden equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through 
the darkness, of the fateful threads of woven fire that connect 
error with retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught 
to extend the limits of her sympathy with respect to that his- 
tory which is being forever determined as the moments pass in 
which she draws her peaceful breath ; and to the contemporary 
calamity, which, were it but rightly mourned by her, would 
recur no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in imagining 



AME AND LILIES 



what would be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if she 
were daily brought into the presence of the suffering which is 
not the less real because shut from her sight. She is to be 
v ig ht somewhat to understand the nothingness of the prop 
tion which that little world in which she lives and L 
to the world in which God lives and loves — and solemnly i 
is : j be taught to strive that her thoughts of piety may not 
feeble in proportion to the number they embrace, nor her pi 
more languid than it is for the momentary relief from pain of 
her husband or her child, when it is uttered for the multitudes 
of those who have none to love them, and is, " for all who axe 
ate and oppressed 

Thus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; per- 
haps you will not be with me in what I believe is most needful 
for me to say. There u one dangerous science ° for women — 
one which they must indeed beware how they profanely touch 
— that of theology. Strange, and miserably strange, that 
while they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and pause 
at the threshold of sciences where every step is demonstrable 
and sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one thought 
of incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men 
have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will 
complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly 
there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind ineom- 
prehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh. 
Strange in creatures born to be Love visible, that where they 
can know least, they will condemn first, and think to recom- 
mend themselves to their Master, by crawling up the steps of 
His judgment-throne, to divide it ° with Him. Strange- 
alL that they should think they were led by the Spirit of the 
Comforter ° into habits of mind which have become in them the 
unmixed elements of home discomfort : and that they dare to 
turn the Household Gods of Christianity into ugly idols of their 
own : — spiritual dolls, for them to dress according to their 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 73 

caprice; and from which their husbands must turn away in 
grieved contempt, lest they should be shrieked at for breaking 
them. 

74. I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl's educa- 
tion should be nearly, in its course and material of study, the 
same as a boy's ; but quite differently directed. A woman, in 
any rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely 
to know, but to know it in a different way. His command of 
it should be foundational and progressive ; hers, general ° and 
accomplished for daily and helpful use. Not but that it would 
often be wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, 
for present use, and to seek for the discipline and training of 
their mental powers in such branches of study as will be after- 
wards fitted for social service ; but, speaking broadly, a man 
ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly — 
while a woman ought to know the same language, or science, 
only so far as may enable her to sympathize in her husband's 
pleasures, and in those of his best friends. 

75. Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she 
reaches. There is a wide difference between elementary knowl- 
edge and superficial knowledge — between a firm beginning, 
and an infirm attempt at compassing. A woman may always 
help her husband by what she knows, however little ; by what 
she half-knows, or mis-knows, she will only tease him. 

And indeed, if there were to be any difference between a 
girl's education and a boy's, I should say that of the two the 
girl should be earlier led, as her intellect ripens faster, into deep 
and serious subjects : and that her range of literature should 
be, not more, but less frivolous ; calculated to add the qualities 
of patience and seriousness to her natural poignancy of thought 
and quickness of wit ; and also to keep her in a lofty and pure 
element of thought. I enter not now into any question of 
choice of books : only let us be sure that her books are not 
heaped up in her lap as they fall out of the package of the 4 cir- 



74 SESAME AND LILIES 

dilating library, wet with the last and lightest spray of the 
fountain of folly. 

76. Or even of the fountain of wit : for with respect to the 
sore temptation of novel reading, it is not the badness of a 
novel that we should dread, so much as its overwrought inter- 
est. The weakest romance is not so stupefying as the lower 
forms of religious exciting literature, and the worst romance is 
not so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or false 
political essays. But the best romance becomes dangerous, if, 
by its excitement, it renders the ordinary course of life uninter- 
esting, and increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance 
with scenes in which we shall never be called upon to act. 

77. I speak, therefore, of good novels only : and our modern 
literature is particularly rich in types of such. Well read, 
indeed, these books have serious use, being nothing less than 
treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry ; ° studies of human 
nature in the elements of it. But I attach little weight to 
this function ; they are hardly ever read with earnestly 
enough to permit them to fulfil it. The utmost they usually 
do is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the 
bitterness of a malicious one : for each will gather, from the 
novel, food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally 
proud and envious will learn from Thackeray ° to despise hu- 
manity ; those who are naturally gentle, to pity it ; those who 
are naturally shallow, to laugh at it. So, also, there might be 
a serviceable power in novels to bring before us, in vividness, a 
human truth which we had before dimly conceived : but the 

' temptation to pieturesqueness of statement is so great, that 
often the best writers of fiction cannot resist it ; and our views 
are rendered so violent and one sided, that their vitality is 
rather a harm than a good. 

78. Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at 
decision how much novel reading should be allowed, let me at 
least ciearlv assert this, that whether novels, or poetry, or his- 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 75 

tory be read, they should be chosen, not for their freedom from 
evil, but for their possession of good. The chance and scattered 
evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful 
book, never does any harm to a noble girl ; but the emptiness 
of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. 
And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical 
books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern 
magazine and novel out of your girl's way ; turn her loose into 
the old library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find 
what is good for her ; you cannot ; for there is just this differ- 
ence between the making of a girl's character and a boy's — you 
may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer 
him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of 
bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She 
grows as a flower doas, — she will wither without sun ; she will 
decay in her sheath, as a narcissus ° will, if you do not give her 
air enough ; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you 
leave her without help at some moments of her life ; but you 
cannot fetter her ; she must take her own fair form and way, 
if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always 

" Her household motions light and free, 
And steps of virgin liberty." 

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in the field. 
It knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you ; and the 
good ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good 
for it, which you had not the slightest thought would have 
been so. 

79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let 
her practice in all accomplishments be accurate and thorough, 
so as to enable her to understand more than she accomplishes. 
I say the finest models — that is to say, the truest, simplest, 
usefullest. Note those epithets ; they will range through all 
the arts. Try them in music, where you might think them 



76 SESAME AND LILIES 

the least applicable. I say the truest, that in which the notes 
most closely and faithfully express the meaning of the words, 
or the character of intended emotion ; again, the simplest, that 
in which the meaning and melody are attained with the fewest 
and most significant notes possible ; and finally, the usefullest, 
that music which makes the best words most beautiful, which 
enchants them in our memories each with its own glory of 
sound, and which applies them closest to the heart at the 
moment we need them. 

80. And not only in the material and in the course, but yet 
more earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl's education be as 
serious as a boy's. You bring up your girls as if they were 
meant for sideboard ornaments, and then complain of their 
frivolity. G-ive them the same advantages that you give their 
brothers — appeal to the same grand instincts of virtue in 
them ; teach them, also, that courage and truth are the pillars 
of their being : — do you think that they would not answer 
that appeal, brave and true as they are even now, when you 
know that there is hardly a girl's school in this Christian king- 
dom where the children's courage or sincerity would be thought 
of half so much importance as their way of coming in at a door ; 
and when the whole system of society, as respects the mode of 
establishing them in life, is one rotten plague of cowardice and 
imposture — cowardice, in not daring to let them live, or love, 
except as their neighbors choose; and imposture, in bringing, 
for the purposes of our own pride, the full glow of the world's 
worst vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the very period when the 
whole happiness of her future existence depends upon her re- 
maining undazzled ? 

81. And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, but 
noble teachers. You consider somewhat, before you send your 
boy to school, what kind of a man the master is ; — whatsoever 
kind of a man he is, you at least give him full authority over 
your son, and show some respect to him yourself : — if he comes 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 71 

to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table : you know 
also that, at college, your child's immediate tutor will be under 
the direction of some still higher tutor, for whom you have 
absolute reverence. You do not treat the Dean of Christ 
Church or the Master of Trinity as your inferiors. 

But what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence 
do you show to the teachers you have chosen ? Is a girl likely 
to think her own conduct, or her own intellect, of much impor- 
tance, wmen you trust the entire formation of her character, 
moral and intellectual, to a person whom you let your servants 
treat with less respect than they do your housekeeper (as if the 
soul of your child were a less charge than jams and groceries), 
and wiiom you yourself think you confer an honor upon by let- 
ting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening? 

82. Thus, then, of literature as her help and thus of art. 
There is one more help which she cannot do without — one 
which, alone, has sometimes done more than all other influences 
besides, — the help of wild and fair nature. Hear this of the 
education of Joan of Arc : ° — 

44 The education of this poor girl was mean, according to the 
present standard ; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philo- 
sophical standard ; and only not good for our age, because for us 
it would be unattainable. . . . 

44 Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the 
advantages of her situation. The fountain of I)omr£my ° was on 
the brink of a boundless forest ; and it was haunted to that degree 
by fairies, that the parish priest {cure) was obliged to read mass 
there once a year, in order to keep them in decent bounds. . . . 

44 But the forests of Domr^my — those were the glories of the 
land ; for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets 
that towered into tragic strength. Abbeys there were, and abbey 
windows — 'like Moorish temples of the Hindoos,' — that exercised 
even princely power both in Touraine and in the German Diets. 
These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a 
league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. 
Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no 



78 SESAME AND LILIES 

degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region ; yet many enough 
to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity over what else 
might have seemed a heathen wilderness. ' ' 1 

Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods 
eighteen miles deep to the centre ; but you can, perhaps, keep 
a fairy or two for your children yet, if you wish to keep them. 
But do you wish it? Suppose you had each, at the back of 
your houses, a garden, large enough for your children to play in, 
with just as much lawn as would give them room to run, — no 
more — and that you could not change your abode ; but that, 
if you chose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by 
digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the 
flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I hope not. 
I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave 
you income sixty-fold instead of four-fold. 

83. Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The 
whole country is but a little garden, not more than enough for 
your children to run on the lawns of, if you would let them all 
run there. And this little garden you will turn into furnace 
ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you can ; and those 
children of yours, not you, will suffer for it. For the fairies 
will not be all banished ; there are fairies of the furnace as of 
the wood, and their first gift seems to be " sharp arrows of the 
mighty " ; ° but their last gifts are " coals of juniper." ° 

84. And yet I cannot — though there is no part of my sub- 
ject that I feel more — press this upon you ; for we made so 
little use of the power of nature while we had it that we shall 
hardly feel what we have lost. Just on the other side of the 
Mersey ° you have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits, and 
that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splen- 
did in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once 
thought of as sacred — a divine promontory, looking westward ; 

1 " Joan of Arc : in reference to M. Michelet's ° ' History of France ' ' 
— De Quincey's ° Works, vol. iii., p. 217. 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 79 

the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its 
red light ° glares first through storm. These are the hills, and 
these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would 
have been always loved, always fateful in influence on the 
national mind. That Snowdon is your Parnassus ; but where 
are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is your island of 
iEgina ; but where is its Temple to Minerva 1 / 

85. Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had 
achieved under the shadow of our Parnassus ° up to the year 
1848? — Here is a little account of a Welsh school, from page 
261 of the Eeport on Wales, published by the Committee of 
Council on Education. This a school close to a town containing 
5,000 persons : — 

^^i*Zrffi£k called up a larger class, most of whom had recently 
come to the school. Three girls repeatedly declared they had never 
heard of Christ, and two that they had never heard of God. Two 
out of six thought Christ was on earth now " (they might have had 
a worse thought perhaps), "three knew nothing about the Cruci- 
fixion. Four out of seven did not know the names of the months 
nor the number of days in a year. They had no notion of addi- 
tion ; beyond two and two, or three and three, their minds were 
perfect blanks." 

Oh, ye women of England ! from the Princess of that Wales 
to the simplest of you, do not think your own children can be 
brought into their true fold of rest, while these are scattered 
on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And do not think 
your daughters can be trained to the truth of their own human 
beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once for 
their school-room and their play-ground, lie desolate and defiled. 
You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of 
yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which 
the great Lawgiver ° strikes forth forever from the rocks of your 
native land — waters which a Pagan would have worshipped 
in their purity, and you worship only with pollution. You 



80 SESAME AKD LILIES 

cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn 
church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven — 
the mountains that sustain your island throne, mountains on 
which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in 
every wreathed cloud — remain for you without inscription; 
altars built, not to, but by an Unknown God. 

86. III. Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teach- 
ing, of woman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. 
We come now to our last, our widest question, — What is her 
queenly office with respect to the state? 

Generally, we are under an impression that a man's duties 
are public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether 
so. A man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own 
home, and a public work or duty, which is the expansion of the 
other, relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work 
or duty, relating to her owm home, and a public work or duty, 
which is also the expansion of that. 

Now, the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, 
to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence ; the woman's 
to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness. 

Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a member 
of a commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the 
advance, in the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as 
a member of the commonwealth, is to assist in the order- 
ing, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the 
state. 

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, 
against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more 
devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving 
his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incum- 
bent work there. 

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her 
gates, as the centre of order, the balm of distress, and the 
mirror of beauty : that she is also to be without her gates, 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 81 

where order is more difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness 
more rare. 

And as within the human heart there is always set an 
instinct for all its real duties, — an instinct which you cannot 
quench, but only warp and corrupt if you withdraw it from its 
true purpose ; — as there is the intense instinct of love, which, 
rightly disciplined, maintains all the sanctities of life, and, mis- 
directed, undermines them ; and must do either the one or the 
other; — so there is in the human heart an inextinguishable 
instinct, — the love of power, which, rightly directed, maintains 
all the majesty of law and life, and misdirected, wrecks them. 

87. Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, 
and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it 
there. Vainly, as falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of 
power ! — For Heaven's sake, and for Man's sake, desire it all 
you can. But what power? That is all the question. Power 
to destroy ? the lion's limb, and the dragon's breath 1 Not so. 
Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of 
the sceptre and shield ; the power of the royal hand that heals 
in touching, — that binds the fiend, and looses the captive ; 
the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended 
from only by steps of Mercy. Will you not covet such power 
as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more house- 
wives, but queens ? 

88. It is now long since the women of England arrogated, 
universally, a title which once belonged to nobility only ; and, 
having once been in the habit of accepting the simple title of 
gentlewoman, as correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted 
on the privilege of assuming the title of " Lady," l which prop- 
erly corresponds only to the title of " Lord." 

1 I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our Eng- 
lish youth of certain ranks, in which both hoy and girl should receive, 
at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title : attainable 
only by certain probation and trial both of character and accomplish- 
es 



82 SESAME AXD LILIES 

I do not blame them for this ; but only for their narrow 
motive in this. I would have them desire and claim the title 
of Lady, provided they claim, not merely the title, but the office 
and duty signified by it. Lady ° means " bread-giver " or " loaf- 
giver," and Lord means " maintainer of laws"; and both 
titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the 
house, nor to the bread which is given to the household ; but 
to law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken 
among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to 
his title in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the 
Lord of Lords ; and a Lady has legal claim to her title, only 
so far as she communicates that help to the poor representa- 
tives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him of 
their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Him- 
self; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in 
breaking of bread. 

89. And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of 
the Doininus, or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House- 
Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number of those 
through whom it has lineally descended, but in the number of 
those whom it grasps within its sway ; it is always regarded 
with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its 
duty, and its ambition correlative with its beneficence. Your 
fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with 
a train of vassals 1 Be it so ; you cannot be too noble, and 
your train cannot be too great ; but see to it that your train 
is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves 
who serve and feed you ; and that the multitude which obeys 
you is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed, — 
whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity. 

ment ; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dis- 
honorable act. Such an institution would be entirely, aud with all 
noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honor. That it would 
not be possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme. 



OF QUEENS' GAUD ENS 83 

90. And this, which is true of the lower or household 
dominion, is equally true of the queenly dominion ; that high- 
est dignity is open to you, if you will also accept that highest 
duty. Rex et Regina — Roi et Reine — " Bight-doers " ; ° 
they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that their power 
is supreme over the mind as over the person — that they not 
only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether con- 
sciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned : there 
is no putting by that crown ; queens you must always be : 
queens to your lovers ; queens to your husbands and your sons ; 
queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows 
itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the 
stainless sceptre of womanhood. But, alas ! you are too often 
idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, 
while you abdicate it in the greatest ; and leaving misrule and 
violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power 
which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, 
the wicked among you betray, and the good forget. 

91. "Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings rule 
in that name, and nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, 
in their narrow place, and mortal measure, receive the power 
of it. There are no other rulers than they : other rule than 
theirs is but misrule ; they who govern verily " Dei gratia " ° are 
all princes, yes, or princesses, of Peace. There is not a war 
in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answer- 
able for it ; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have 
not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight ; they 
will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose 
their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. 
There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but 
the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but 
you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down 
without sympathy in their own struggle ; but men are feeble 
in sympathy, and contracted in hope ; it is you only who can 



84 SESAME AXD LILIES 






feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing. 
Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it ; you shut 
yourselves within your park walls ° and garden gates ; and you 
are content to know that there is beyond them a whole world 
in wilderness — a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate, 
and of suffering which you dare not conceive. 

92. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing 
among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no 
depths to which, when once warped from its honor, that hu- 
manity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser's death, 
with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder 
at the sensualist's life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. 
I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, 
done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed- 
shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the inyrial- 
handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight. 
by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable 
guilt, heaped up from hell to heaven, of their priest?, and king-. 
But this is wonderful to me — oh, how wonderful ! — to see the 
tender and delicate woman among you. with her child at her 
breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its 
father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas 
of earth — nay, a magnitude of blessing which her husband 
would not part with for all that earth itself, though it were 
made of one entire and perfect chrysolite : ° — to see her abdi- 
cate this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door 
neighbor ! This is wonderful — oh, wonderful ! — to see her, 
with every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the 
morning into her garden to play with the fringes of its guarded 
flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her 
happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because 
there is a little wall around her place of peace ; and yet she 
knows, in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, 
that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild gra>-. r i 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 85 

the horizon, is torn up ° by the agony of men, and beat level by 
the drift of their life-blood. 

93. Have you ever considered what a deep under-meaning 
there lies, or at least may be read, if we choose, in our custom 
of strewing flowers before those whom we think most happy ? 
Do you suppose it is merely to deceive them into the hope that 
happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet? — that 
whenever they pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and 
that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth 
of roses ? So surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, 
to walk on bitter herbs and thorns ; and the only softness to 
their feet will be of snow. But it is not thus intended they 
should believe; there is a better meaning in that old custom. 
The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers ; but 
they rise behind her steps, not before them. " Her feet have 
touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy." 

94. You think that only a lover's fancy ; — false and vain ! 
How if it could be true ? You think this also, perhaps, only a 
poet's fancy — 

" Even the light harebell raised its head 
Elastic from her airy tread." 

But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy 
where she passes. She should revive ; the harebells should 
bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You think I am rushing into 
hyperbole ? ° Pardon me, not a whit — I mean what I say in 
calm English, spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it 
said — (and I believe there is more than fancy even in that 
saying, but let it pass for a fanciful one) — that flowers only 
flourish rightly ° in the garden of some one who loves them. I 
know you would like that to be true j you would think it a 
pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter 
bloom by a kind look upon them : nay, more, if your look had 
the power, not only to cheer, but to guard ; — if you could bid 



86 SESAME AXD LILIES 

the black blight ° turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare — 
if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drouth, and say 
to the south wind, in frost, " Come, thou south, and breathe 
upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow out." This 
you would think a great thing? And do you think it not a 
greater thing, that all this (and how much more than this !) 
you can do, for fairer flowers than these — flowers that could 
bless you for having blessed them ; and will love you for having 
loved them; — flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives 
like yours; and which, once saved, you save forever? Is this 
only a little power ? Far among the moorlands and the rocks, — 
far iu the darkness of the terrible streets, — these feeble florets ° 
are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken 
— will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in 
their little fragrant beds, nor fence them, in their trembling, 
from the fierce wind ? Shall morning follow morning, for you, 
but not for them ; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those 
frantic Dances of Death ; x but no dawn rise to breathe upon 
these living banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose ; nor 
call to you, through your casement, — call (not giving you the 
name of the English poet's lady,° but the name of Dante's great 
Matilda, who on the edge of happy Lethe, stood, wreathing 
flowers with flowers), saying, — 

" Come into the garden, Maud,° 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad 
And the musk of the roses blown " ? 

Will you not go down among them ? — among those sweet 
living things, whose new courage, sprung from the earth with 
the deep color of heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of 
goodly spire ; and whose purity, washed from the dust, is open- 
ing, bud by bud, into the flower of promise : — and still they 

1 See note 2, page 38. 



OF QUEENS' GARDENS 8v 

turn to you, and for you, " The Larkspur ° listens — I hear, I 
hear ! And the Lily whispers — I wait." 

95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you 
that first stanza ; and think that I had forgotten them ? Hear 
them now : — 

" Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown. 
Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate, alone." 

"Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter 
garden, alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a 
Maud, but a Madeleine, who went down to her garden in the 
dawn, and found One waiting at the gate, whom she supposed 
to be the gardener 1 Have you not sought Him often ; sought 
Him in vain, all through the night; sought Him in vain at 
the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword ° is set 1 He 
is never there ; but at the gate of this garden He is waiting 
always — waiting to take your hand — ready to go down to 
see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flour- 
ished, and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with 
Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is guiding — 
there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand 
cast the sanguine ° seed ; — more : you shall see the troops of 
the angel keepers that, with their wings, wave away the hungry 
birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each 
other between the vineyard rows, " Take us the foxes, the little 
foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." 
Oh — you queens — you queens ; among the hills and happy 
greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and 
the birds of the air have nests ; and in your cities shall the 
stones cry out against you, that they are the only pillows 
where the Son of Man can lay His head ? 



£ 





III 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 



LECTUEE III 
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS 

Lecture delivered in the Theatre of the Royal College of Science, 
Dublin, 1868. 

96. When I accepted the privilege of addressing you to-day, 
I was not aware of a restriction ° with respect to the topics of 
discussion which may be brought before this Society, 01 — a 
restriction which, though entirely wise and right under the 
circumstances contemplated in its introduction, would necessa- 
rily have disabled me, thinking as I think, from preparing any 
lecture for you on the subject of art in a form which might be 
permanently useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must 
transgress such limitation • for indeed my infringement will be 
of the letter — not of the spirit — of your commands. In 
whatever I may say touching the religion which has been the 
foundation of art, or the policy which has contributed to its 
power, if I offend one, I shall offend all ; for I shall take no 
note of any separations in creeds, or antagonisms in parties : 
neither do I fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving 
— or at least stating as capable of positive proof — the connec- 
tion ° of all that is best in the crafts and arts of man, with the 
simplicity of his faith, and the sincerity of his patriotism. 

97. But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by 
which I am checked in frankness of utterance, not here only, 
but everywhere : namely, that I am never fully aware how far 

1 That no reference should be made to religious questions. 
91 



92 SESAME AND LILIES 

my audiences are disposed to give me credit for real knowledge 
of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only because 
I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essay- 
ist ° upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly 
call the misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together ; 
not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of 
doing so : until I was heavily punished for this pride, by finding 
that many people thought of the words only, and cared nothing 
for their meaning. Happily, therefore, the power of using such 
pleasant language — if indeed it ever were mine — is passing 
away from me : and whatever I am now able to say at all, I find 
myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts 
have changed also, as my words have ; and whereas in earlier 
life, what little influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to 
the enthusiasm with which I was able to dwell on the beauty 
of the physical clouds, and of their colors in the sky; so all 
the influence I now desire to retain must be due to the earnest- 
ness with which I am endeavoring to trace the form and beauty 
of another kind of cloud than those ; the bright cloud of which 
it is written — " What is your life ? It is even as a vapor ° that 
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." 

98. I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period 
of their age, without having, at some moment of change or dis- 
appointment, felt the truth of those bitter words ; and been 
startled by the fading of the sunshine from the cloud of their 
life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that the fabric of 
it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as 
transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such 
times of melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true per- 
ception that this human life shares in the nature of it, not 
only the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud ; that its 
avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and courses 
no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure ; so that not only 
in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but in the shadow which 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 93 

we cannot pierce, it is true of this cloudy life of ours, that 
" man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in 
vain." ° 

99. And least of all, whatever may have been the eagerness 
of our passions, or the height of our pride, are we able to 
understand in its depths the third and most solemn character 
in which our life is like those clouds of heaven ; that to it 
belongs not only their transience, not only their mystery, but 
also their power ; that in the cloud of the human soul there is 
a fire stronger than the lightning, and a grace more precious 
than the rain ; and that though of the good and evil it shall 
one day be said alike, that the place that knew them ° knows 
them no more, there is an infinite separation between those 
whose brief presence had there been a blessing, like the mist 
of Eden ° that went up from the earth to water the garden, 
and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and 
changeful shade, of whom the Heavenly sentence is, that they 
are " wells without water ; ° clouds that are carried with a tem- 
pest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever." 

100. To those among us, however, who have lived long 
enough to form some just estimate of the rate of the changes 
which are, hour by hour in accelerating catastrophe, manifest- 
ing themselves in the laws, the arts, and the creeds of men, 
it seems to me, that now at least, if never at any former time, 
the thoughts of the true nature of our life, and of its powers 
and responsibilities, should present themselves with absolute 
sadness and sternness. And although I know that this feeling 
is much deepened in my own mind by disappointment, which, 
by chance, has attended the greater number of my cherished 
purposes, I do not for that reason distrust the feeling itself, 
though I am on my guard against an exaggerated degree of it : 
nay, I rather believe that in periods of new effort and violent 
change, disappointment is a wholesome medicine ; and that in 
the secret of it, as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we 



94 SESAME AND LILIES 

may see the colors of things with deeper truth than in the 
most dazzling sunshine. And because these truths about the 
works of men, which I want to bring to-day before you, are 
most of them sad ones, though at the same time helpful ; and 
because also I believe that your kind Irish hearts ° will answer 
more gladly to the truthful expression of a personal feeling, 
than to the exposition of an abstract principle, I will permit 
myself so much unreserved speaking of my own causes of 
regret, as may enable you to make just allowance for what, 
according to your sympathies, you will call either the bitter- 
ness, or the insight, of a mind which has surrendered its best 
hopes, and been foiled in its favorite aims. 

101. I spent the ten strongest years of my life (from twenty 
to thirty), in endeavoring to show the excellence of the work 
of the man ° whom I believed, and rightly believed, to be the 
greatest painter of the schools of England since Reynolds. I 
had then perfect faith in the power of every great truth of 
beauty to prevail ultimately, and take its right place in use- 
fulness and honor ; and I strove to bring the painter's work 
into this due place, while the painter was yet alive. But he 
knew, better than I, the uselessness of talking about what peo- 
ple could not see for themselves. He always discouraged me 
scornfully, even when he thanked me — and he died before 
even the superficial effect of my work was visible. I went on, 
however, thinking I could at least be of use to the public, if 
not to him, in proving his power. My books got talked about 
a little. The prices of modern pictures, generally, rose, and I 
was beginning to take some pleasure in a sense of gradual vic- 
tory, when, fortunately or unfortunately, an opportunity of 
perfect trial undeceived me at once, and forever. The trustees 
of the National Gallery commissioned me to arrange the 
Turner drawings there, and permitted me to prepare three 
hundred examples of his studies from nature, for exhibition at 
Kensington. At Kensington they were, and are, placed for 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 95 

exhibition ; but they are not exhibited, for the room in which 
they hang is always empty. 

102. Well — this showed me at once, that those ten years 
of my life had been, in their chief purpose, lost. For that, I 
did not so much care ; I had, at least, learned my own business 
thoroughly, and should be able, as I fondly supposed, after such 
a lesson, now to use my knowledge with better effect. But 
what I did care for was the — to me frightful — discovery, that 
the most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted by 
Providence to labor and perish uselessly ; that in the very fine- 
ness of it there might be something rendering it invisible to 
ordinary eyes ; but that, with this strange excellence, faults 
might be mingled which would be as deadly as its virtues were 
vain ; that the glory of it was perishable, as well as invisible, 
and the gift and grace of it might be to us as snow in sum- 
mer ° and as rain in harvest. 

103. That was the first mystery of life to me. But, while 
my best energy was given to the study of painting, I had put 
collateral effort, more prudent if less enthusiastic, into that of 
architecture ; and in this I could not complain of meeting with 
no sympathy. Among several personal reasons which caused 
me to desire that I might give this, my closing lecture on the 
subject of art here, in Ireland, one of the chief was, that in 
reading it, I should stand near the beautiful building, — the 
engineers' school of your college, — which was the first realiza- 
tion I had the joy to see, of the principles I had, until then, 
been endeavoring to teach ! but which, alas, is now, to me, no 
more than the richly canopied monument of one of the most 
earnest souls that ever gave itself to the arts, and one of my 
truest and most loving friends, Benjamin Woodward. Nor 
was it here in Ireland only that I received the help of Irish 
sympathy and genius. When, to another friend, Sir Thomas 
Deane,° with Mr. Woodward, was intrusted the building of the 
museum at Oxford, the best details of the work were executed 



96 SESAME AND LILIES 

by sculptors who had been born and trained here ; and the first 
window of the facade ° of the building, in which was inaugu- 
rated the study of natural science in England, in true fellow- 
ship with literature, was carved from my design by an Irish 
sculptor. 

104. You may perhaps think that no man ought to speak 
of disappointment, to whom, even in one branch of labor, so 
much success was granted. Had Mr. Woodward now been 
beside me, I had not so spoken ; but his gentle and passionate 
spirit was cut off from the fulfilment of its purposes, and the 
work we did together is now become vain. It may not be so 
in future ; but the architecture we endeavored to introduce is 
inconsistent alike with the reckless luxury, the deforming mech- 
anism, and the squalid misery of modern cities ; ° among the 
formative fashions of the day, aided, especially in England, by 
ecclesiastical sentiment, it indeed obtained notoriety ; ° and 
sometimes behind ' an engine furnace, or a railroad bank, you 
may detect the pathetic discord of its momentary grace, and, 
with toil, decipher its floral carvings choked with soot. I felt 
answerable to the schools I loved, only for their injury. I per- 
ceived that this new portion of my strength had also been spent 
in vain ; and from amidst ° streets of iron, and palaces of crys- 
tal, shrunk back at last to the carving of the mountain and 
color of the flower. 

105. And still I could tell of failure, and failure repeated, as 
years went on ; but I have trespassed enough on your patience 
to show you, in part, the causes of my discouragement. Now 
let me more deliberately tell you its results. You know there 
is a tendency in the minds of many men, when they are heavily 
disappointed in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and per- 
haps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself 
is a vanity. Because it has disappointed them, they think its 
nature is of disappointment ° always, or at best, of pleasure that 
can be grasped by imagination only ; that the cloud of it has 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 97 

no strength nor fire within ; but is a painted cloud only, to be 
delighted in, yet despised. You know how beautifully Pope ° 
has expressed this particular phase of thought : — 

" Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, 
These painted clouds that beautify our days ; 
Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 
And each vacuity of sense, by pride. 
Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy ; 
In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. 
One pleasure past, another still we gain ; 
And not a vanity is given in vain." 

But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been just the 
reverse of this. The more that my life disappointed me, the 
more solemn and wonderful it became to me. It seemed, con- 
trarily to Pope's saying, that the vanity of it was indeed given 
in vain; but that there was something behind the veil of it, which 
was not vanity. It became to me not a painted cloud, but a 
terrible and impenetrable one ; not a mirage, which vanished 
as I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was for- 
bidden to draw near. For I saw that both my own failure, 
and such success in petty things as in its poor triumph seemed 
to me worse than failure, came from the want of sufficiently 
earnest effort to understand the whole law and meaning of 
existence, and to bring it to noble and due end ; as, on the 
other hand, I saw more and more clearly that all enduring suc- 
cess in the arts, or in any other occupation, had come from the 
ruling of lower purposes, not by a conviction of their nothing- 
ness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing power of human 
nature, or in the promise, however dimly apprehended, that 
the mortal part of it would one day be swallowed up in immor- 
tality ; and that, indeed, the arts ° themselves never had 
reached any vital strength or honor, but in the effort to pro- 
claim this immortality, and in the service either of great and 
ii 



98 SESAME A XI) LILIES 



just religion, or of some unselfish patriotism, and law of such 
national life as must be the foundation of religion. 

106. Nothing that I have ever said is more true or neces- 
sary — nothing has been more misunderstood or misapplied 
than my strong assertion that the arts can never be right 
themselves unless their motive is right. It is misunderstood 
this way : weak painters, who have never learned their busi- 
ness, and cannot lay a true line, continually come to me, cry- 
ing out, — " Look at this picture of mine ; it must be good, I 
had such a lovely motive. I have put my whole heart into it, 
and taken years to think over its treatment." Well, the only 
answer ° for these people is — if one had the cruelty to make 
it — " Sir, you cannot think over anything in any number of 
years, — you haven't the head to do it ; and though you had 
fine motives, strong enough to make you burn yourself in a 
slow fire, if only first you could paint a picture, you can't paint 
one, nor half an inch of one ; you haven't the hand to do it." 

But, far more decisively we have to say to men who do 
know their business, or may know it if they choose — "Sir, 
you have this gift, and a mighty one ; see that you serve your 
nation faithfully with it. It is a greater trust than ships and 
armies : you might cast them away, if you were their captain, 
with less treason to your people than in casting your own glo- 
rious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. 
Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great 
intellect, once abused, is a curse to the earth forever." 

107. This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have 
noble motive. This also I said respecting them, that they 
never had prospered, nor could prosper, but when they had 
such true purpose, and were devoted to the proclamation of 
divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had always 
failed in this proclamation — that poetry, and sculpture, and 
painting, though only great when they strove to teach us some- 
thing about the gods, never had taught us anything trust- 



ich 

:es- 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 99 

worthy about the gods, but had always betrayed their trust in 
the crisis of it, and, with their powers at the full reach, became 
ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, with increas- 
ing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves the 
hearers, no less than in these the teachers ; and that while the 
wisdom and Tightness of every act and art of life could only be 
consistent with a right understanding of the ends of life, we 
were all plunged as in a languid dream — our hearts fat,° and 
our eyes heavy, and our ears closed, lest the inspiration of hand 
or voice should reach us — lest we should see with our eyes, 
and understand with our hearts, and be healed. 

108. This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mys- 
tery of life ; it stands in the way of every perception, every 
virtue. There is no making ourselves feel enough astonishment 
at it. That the occupations or pastimes of life should have no 
motive, is understandable ; but — That life itself should have 
no motive — that we neither care to find out what it may lead 
to, nor to guard against its being forever taken away from us 

— here is a mystery indeed. For just suppose I were able to 
call at this moment to any one in this audience by name, and 
to tell him positively that I knew a large estate had been lately 
left to him on some curious conditions ; but that, though I knew 
it was large, I did not know how large, nor even where it was 

— whether in the East Indies or the West, or in England, or 
at the Antipodes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and there 
was a chance of his losing it altogether if he did not soon find 
out on what terms it had been left to him. Suppose I were 
able to say this positively to any single man in this audience, 
and he knew that I did not speak without warrant, do you 
think that he would rest content with that vague knowledge, 
if it were anywise possible to obtain more ? Would he not 
give every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never 
rest until he had ascertained where this place was, and what it 
was like ? And suppose he were a young man, and all he could 

l.ofC. 



100 SESAME AND LILIES 

discover by his best endeavor was that the estate was never 
to be his at all, unless he persevered, during certain years of 
probation, in an orderly and industrious life ; ' but that, accord- 
ing to the Tightness of his conduct, the portion of the estate 
assigned to him would be greater or less, so that it literally 
depended on his behavior from day to day whether he got ten 
thousand a year, or thirty thousand a year, or nothing what- 
ever — would you not think it strange if the youth never 
troubled himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor even 
to know what was required of him, but lived exactly as he 
chose, and never inquired whether his chances of the estate 
were increasing or passing away? Well, you know that this 
is actually and literally so with the greater number of the edu- 
cated persons now living in Christian countries. Nearly every 
man and woman, in any company such as this, outwardly pro- 
fesses to believe — and a large number unquestionably think 
they believe — much more than this; not only that a quite 
unlimited estate is in prospect for them if they please the 
Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of such a possession 
— an estate of perpetual misery — is in store for them if they 
displease this great Land-Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. 
And yet there is not one in a thousand of these human souls 
that cares to think, for ten minutes of the day, where this 
estate is, or how beautiful it is, or what kind of life they are to 
lead in it, or what kind of life they must lead to obtain it. 

109. You fancy that you care to know this : so little do you 
care that, probably, at this moment many of you are displeased 
with me for talking of the matter ! You came to hear about 
the Art of this world, not about the Life of the next, and you 
are provoked with me for talking of what you can hear any 
Sunday in church. But do not be afraid. I will tell you some- 
thing ° before you go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery, 
and what else you would like better to hear of than the other 
world, Nay, perhaps you say, "We want you to talk of pic- 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 101 

tures and pottery, because we are sure that you know something 
of them, and you know nothing of the other world." Well — 
I don't. That is quite true. But the very strangeness and 
mystery of which I urge you to take notice, is in this — that I 
do not ; — -nor you either. Can you answer a single bold ques- 
tion unflinchingly about that other world % — Are you sure ° 
there is a heaven ? Sure there is a hell ? Sure that men are 
dropping before your faces through the pavements of these 
streets into eternal fire, or sure that they are not ? Sure that 
at your own death you are going to be delivered from all sor- 
row, to be endowed with all virtue, to be gifted with all felicity, 
and raised into perpetual companionship with a King, compared 
to whom the kings of the earth ° are as grasshoppers, and the 
nations as the dust of His feet? Are you sure of this ? or, if not 
sure, do any of us so much as care to make it sure 1 and, if not, 
how can anything that, we do be right — how can anything we 
think be wise ? what honor can there be in the arts that amuse 
us, or what profit in the possessions that please? 

Is not this ° a mystery of life ? 

110. But further, you may, perhaps, think it a beneficent 
ordinance for the generality of men that they do not, with ear- 
nestness or anxiety, dwell on such questions of the future 
because the business of the day could not be done if this kind 
of thought ° were taken by all of us for the morrow. Be it so : 
but at least we might anticipate that the greatest and wisest of 
us, who were evidently the appointed teachers of the rest, would 
set themselves apart to seek out whatever could be surely known 
of the future destinies of their race : and to teach this in no 
rhetorical or ambiguous manner, but in the plainest and most 
severely earnest words. 

Now, the highest representatives of men who have thus en- 
deavored, during the Christian era, to search out these deep 
things, and relate them, are Dante and Milton. There are 
none who for earnestness of thought, for mastery of word, can 



102 SESAME AND LILIES 

be classed with these. I am not at present, mind you, speak- 
ing of persons set apart in any priestly or pastoral office, to 
deliver creeds to us, or doctrines ; but of men who try to dis- 
cover and set forth, as far as by human intellect is possible, the 
facts of the other world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to 
arrive there, but only these two poets have in any powerful man- 
ner striven to discover, or in any definite words professed to 
tell, what we shall see and become there ; or how those upper 
and nether worlds are, and have been, inhabited. 

111. And what have they told us? Milton's account of the 
most important event in his whole system of the universe, the 
fall of the angels, is evidently unbelievable to himself ; ° and 
the more so, that it is wholly founded on, and in a great part 
spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod's ° account of the decisive 
war of the younger gods with the Titans. The rest of this 
poem is a picturesque drama, in which every artifice of inven- 
tion is visibly and consciously employed ; not a single fact 
being, for an instant, conceived as tenable by any living faith. 
Dante's conception is far more intense, and, by himself, for the 
time, not to be escaped from ; it is indeed a vision, but a vision 
only, and that one of the wildest that ever entranced a soul — 
a dream in which every grotesque type or fantasy of heathen 
tradition is renewed, and adorned ; and the destinies of the 
Christian Church, under their most sacred symbols, become 
literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be under- 
stood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden. 

112. I tell you truly that, as I strive more with this strange 
lethargy ° and trance in myself, and awake to the meaning and 
power of life, it seems daily more amazing to me that men such 
as these should dare to play with the most precious truths, (or 
the most deadly untruths,) by which the whole human race lis- 
tening to them could be informed, or deceived ; — all the world 
their audiences forever, with pleased ear and passionate heart : 
— and yet, to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermon 



re 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 103 

succeeding and succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, 
they do but play upon sweetly modulated pipes ; with pompous 
nomenclature adorn the councils of hell ; touch a troubadour's 
guitar ° to the courses of the suns ; and fill the openings of 
eternity, before w T hich prophets have veiled their faces, and 
which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their 
scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith 
in their lost mortal love.° 

Is not this a mystery of life ? 

113. But more. We have to remember that these two 
great teachers were both of them warped in their temper, and 
thwarted in their search for truth. They were men of intel- 
lectual war, unable, through darkness of controversy, or stress 
of personal grief, to discern where their own ambition modified 
their utterances of the moral law ; or their own agony mingled 
with their anger at its violation. But greater men than these 
have been — innocent-hearted — too great for contest. Men, 
like Homer ° and Shakespeare, of so unrecognized personality, 
that it disappears in future ages, and becomes ghostly, like the 
tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, therefore, to whose unof- 
fended, uncondemning sight, the w T hole of human nature reveals 
itself in a pathetic weakness, with which they will not strive ; 
or in mournful and transitory strength, which they dare not praise. 
And all Pagan and Christian Civilization thus becomes subject 
to them. It does not matter how little, or how much, any of 
us have read, either of Homer or Shakespeare ; everything round 
us, in substance or in thought, has been moulded by them. All 
Greek gentlemen were educated under Homer. All Roman 
gentlemen, by Greek literature. All Italian, and French, and 
English gentlemen, by Roman literature, and by its principles. 
Of the scope of Shakespeare, I will say only, that the intellect- 
ual measure of every man since born, in the domains of creative 
thought, may be assigned to him, according to the degree in 
which he lias been taught by Shakespeare. Well, what do these 



104 SESAME A XI) LILIES 

two men, centres of mortal intelligence, deliver to us of convic- 
tion respecting what it most behooves that intelligence to grasp ? 
What is their hope — their crown of rejoicing \ what manner of 
exhortation have they for us, or of rebuke ? what lies next their 
own hearts, and dictates their undying words? Have they any 
peace to promise to our unrest — any redemption to our misery ! 

114. Take Homer first, and think if there is any sadder 
image of human fate than the great Homeric story. The 
main features in the character of Achilles are its intense desire 
of justice, and its tenderness of affection. And in that bitter 
song of the Iliad, this man, though aided continually by the 
wisest of the gods, and burning with the desire of justice in his 
heart, becomes yet, through ill-governed passion, the most unjust 
of men : and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes 
yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. Intense 
alike in love and in friendship, he loses, first his mistress, and 
then his friend : for the sake of the one, he surrenders to death 
the armies of his own land ; for the sake of the other he sur- 
renders all. Will a man lay down his life for his friend 1 Yea 
— even for his dead friend, this Achilles, though goddess-born 
and goddess-taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, and his 
life — casts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into one 
gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the basest of 
his adversaries . 

Is not this a mystery of life ? 

115. But what, then, is the message to us of our own poet, 
and searcher of hearts, after fifteen hundred years of Christian 
faith have been numbered over the graves of men ? Are his 
words more cheerful than the Heathen's — is his hope more 
near — his trust more sure — his reading of fate more happy ? 
Ah, no ! He differs from the heathen poet chiefly in this — 
that he recognizes, for deliverance, no gods nigh at hand ; and 
that, by petty chance — by momentary folly — by broken mes- 
sage — by fool's tyranny — or traitor's snare, the strongest and 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 105 

most righteous are brought to their ruin, and perish without 
word of hope. He indeed, as part of his rendering of character, 
ascribes the power and modesty of habitual levotion to the gen- 
tle and the just. The death-bed of Katharine ° is bright with 
vision of angels ; and the great soldier-king, ° standing by his few 
dead, acknowledges the presence of the hand that can save alike 
by many or by few. But observe that from those who with 
deepest spirit, meditate, and with deepest passion, mourn, there 
are no such words as these ; nor in their hearts are any such 
consolations. Instead of the perpetual sense of the helpful pres- 
ence of the Deity, which through all heathen tradition is the 
source of heroic strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley 
of the shadow of death, we find only in the great Christian poet, 
the consciousness of a moral law, through which " the gods are 
just,° and of our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us ; " 
and of the resolved arbitration of the destinies, that conclude into 
precision of doom what we feebly and blindly began ; and force 
us, when our indiscretion serves us, and our deepest plots do 
pall, to the confession that " there's a divinity that shapes our 
ends, rough-hew them how we will." 

Is not this a mystery of life 1 

116. Be it so, then. About this human life that is to be, 
or that is, the wise religious men tell us nothing that we can 
trust \ and the wise contemplative men, nothing that can give 
us peace. But there is yet a third class, to whom we may 
turn — the wise practical men. We have sat at the feet of 
poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their dreams. 
We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have 
chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one 
class of men or more : — men, not capable of vision, nor sensi- 
tive to sorrow, but firm of purpose — practised in business ; 
learned in all that can be, (by handling,) known. Men, whose 
hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world, from whom, 
therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, conven- 



106 SESAME AND LILIES 

iently to live in it. What will they say to us, or show us by 
example 1 These kings — these councillors — these, statesmen 
and builders of kingdoms — these capitalists and men of busi- 
ness, who weigh the earth, and the dust of it, in a balance. 
They know the world, surely ; and what is the mystery of life 
to us, is none to them. They can surely show us how to live, 
while we live, and to gather out of the present world what is best. 
117. I think I can best tell you their answer by telling you 
a dream I had once. For though I am no poet, I have dreams 
sometimes : — I dreamed ° I was at a child's May-day party, 
in which every means of entertainment had been provided for 
them by a wise and kind host. It was in a stately house, with 
beautiful gardens attached to it ; and the children had been set 
free in the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever but how 
to pass their afternoon rejoicingly. They did not, indeed, know 
much about what was to happen next day ; and some of them, 
I thought, were a little frightened, because there was a chance 
of their being sent ° to a new school where there were examina- 
tions ; but they kept the thoughts of that out of their heads as 
well as they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The 
house, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the garden 
were all kinds of flowers ; sweet, grassy banks for rest ; and 
smooth lawns for play ; and pleasant streams and woods ; and 
rocky places for climbing. And the children were happy for a 
little while ; but presently they separated themselves into par- 
ties ; and then each party declared, it would have a piece of the 
garden ° for its own, and that none of the others should have 
anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled vio- 
lently which pieces they would have ; and at last the boys 
took up the thing, as boys should do, "practically," and 
fought in the flower-beds till there was hardly a flower left 
standing ; then they trampled down each other's bits of the 
garden out of spite ; and the girls cried till they could cry no 
more; and so they all lay down at last breathless in the ruin, 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 107 

and waited for the time when they were to be taken home in 
the evening. 1 

118. Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making 
themselves happy also in their manner. For them, there had been 
provided every kind of in-door pleasure : there was music for 
them to dance to ; and the library was open, with all manner 
of amusing books ; and there was a museum, full of the most 
curious shells, and animals, and birds ; and there was a work- 
shop, with lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys ; 
and there were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in ; 
and there were microscopes, and kaleidoscopes ; and whatever 
toys a child could fancy ; and a table, in the dining-room, loaded 
with everything nice to eat. 

But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the 
more " practical " children, that they would like some of the 
brass-headed nails ° that studded the chairs ; and so they set to 
work to pull them out. Presently, the others, who were read- 
ing, or looking at shells, took a fancy to do the like ; and, in a 
little while, all the children, nearly, were spraining their ringers, 
in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all that they could 
pull out, they were not satisfied ; and then, everybody wanted 
some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and 
sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, 
that afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails ; and 
that the books, and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no 
use at all in themselves, but only, if they could be exchanged 
for nail-heads. And at last they began to fight for nail-heads, 
as the others fought for the bits of garden. Only here and 
there, a despised one shrunk away into a corner, and tried to 
get a little quiet ° with a book, in the midst of the noise ; but 

1 1 have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it to 
set forth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and 
what follows, to set forth their wisdom in peace, contending for 
wealth. 



108 SESAME AND LILIES 

all the practical ones thought of nothing else but counting nail- 
heads all the afternoon — even though they knew they would not 
be allowed to carry so much as one brass knob away with them. 
But no — it was — " Who has most nails ? I have a hundred, 
and you have fifty ; " or, " I have a thousand, and you have two. 
I must have as many as you before I leave the house, or I can- 
not possibly go home in peace." At last, they made so much 
noise that I awoke, and thought to myself, " What a false dream 
that is, of children I " The child is the father of the man ; ° 
and wiser. Children never do such foolish things. Only men do. 

119. But there is yet one last class of persons to be interro- 
gated. The wise religious men we have asked in vain; the 
wise contemplative men, in vain; the wise worldly men, in 
vain. But there is another group yet. In the midst of this 
vanity of empty religion — of tragic contemplation — of wrath- 
ful and wretched ambition, and dispute for dust, there is yet 
ODe great group of persons, by whom all these disputers live — 
the persons who have determined, or have had it by a benefi- 
cent Providence determined for them, that they will do some- 
thing useful ; that whatever may be prepared for them hereafter, 
or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve the food 
that God gives them by winning it honorably ; and that, how- 
ever fallen from the purity, or far from the peace, of Eden, 
they will carry out the duty of human dominion though they 
have lost its felicity ; and dress and keep ° the wilderness, 
though they no more can dress or keep the garden. 

These, — hewers of wood and drawers of water, — these, bent 
under burdens, or torn of scourges — these, that dig and weave — 
that plant and build ; workers in wood, and in marble, and in 
iron — by whom all food, clothing, habitation, furniture, and 
means of delight are produced, for themselves, and for all men 
beside ; men, whose deeds are good, though their words may be 
few; men, whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, 
and worthy of honor, be they never so humble ; — from these, 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 109 

surely, at least, we may receive some clear message of teaching ; 
and pierce, for an instant, into the mystery of life, and of its 
arts. 

120. Yes; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson. But 
I grieve to say, or rather — for that is the deeper truth of the 
matter — I rejoice to say, this message of theirs can only be 
received by joining them, — not by thinking about them. 

You sent for me to talk to you of art ; and I have obeyed 
you in coming. But the main thing I have to tell you is, — 
that art must not be talked about. The fact that there is 
talk about it at all, signifies that it is ill-done, or cannot be 
done. No true painter ° ever speaks, or ever has spoken, much 
of his art. The greatest speak nothing. Even Reynolds ° is 
no exception, for he wrote of all that he could not himself do, 
and was utterly silent respecting all that he himself did. 

The moment a man can really do his work he becomes 
speechless about it. All words become idle to him — all theories. 

121. Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or 
boast of it when built ? All good work is essentially done that 
way — without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting ; 
and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary 
power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal — 
nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason 
does not supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much 
more divine than that of the lower animals as the human body 
is more beautiful than theirs ; that a great singer sings not 
with less instinct than the nightingale, but with more — only 
more various, applicable, and governable ; that a great architect 
does not build with less instinct than the beaver or the bee, 
but with more — with an innate cunning of proportion that em- 
braces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises 
all construction. But be that as it may — be the instinct less 
or more than that of inferior animals — like or unlike theirs, 
still the human art is dependent on that first, and then upon an 



110 SESAME AND LILIES 

amount of practice, of science, and of imagination disciplined by 
thought, which the true possessor of it knows to be incommuni- 
cable, and the true critic of it, inexplicable, except through 
long process of laborious years. That journey of life's conquest, 
in which hills over hills, and Alps on Alps arose, and sank, — 
do you think you can make another trace it painlessly, by talk- 
ing ? Why, you cannot even carry us up an Alp, by talking. 
You can guide us up it, step by step, no otherwise — even so, best 
silently. You girls, who have been among the hills, know how 
the bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is " put your foot 
here," and "mind how you balance yourself there;" but the 
good guide walks on quietly without a word, only with his eyes 
on you when need is, and his arm like an iron bar, if need be. 

122. In that slow way, also, art can be taught — if you have 
faith in your guide, and will let his arm be to you as an iron bar 
when need is. But in what teacher of art have you such faith ? 
Certainly not in me ; for, as I told you at first, I know well 
enough it is only because you think I can talk, not because you 
think I know my business, that you let me speak to you at all. 
If I were to tell you anything that seemed to you strange you 
would not believe it • and yet it would only be in telling you 
strange things that I could be of use to you. I could be of great 
use to you — infinite use — with brief saying, if you would be- 
lieve it ; but you would not, just because the thing that would 
be of real use would displease you. You are all wild, for instance, 
with admiration of G-ustave Dore.° Well, suppose I were to tell 
you, in the strongest terms I could use, that Gustave Dore°s art 
was bad — bad, not in weakness, — not in failure, — but bad 
with dreadful power — the power of the Furies and the Harpies ° 
mingled — enraging and polluting \ that so long as you looked 
at it, no perception of pure or beautiful art was possible for 
you. Suppose I were to tell you that ! What would be the 
use t Would you look at Gustave Dore* less ? Rather, more, I 
fancy. On the other hand, I could soon put you into good 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 111 

humor with me, if I chose. I know well enough what you 
like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could 
talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, 
and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael ° — how 
motherly ! and the Sibyls of Michel Angelo ° — how majestic ! 
and the Saints of Angelico ° — how pious ! and the Cherubs of 
Correggio ° — how delicious ! Old as I am, I could play you a 
tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither 
you nor I should be a bit the better or wiser • or, if we were, 
our increased wisdom could be of no practical effect. For, 
indeed, the arts, as regards teachableness, differ from the 
sciences also in this, that their power is founded not merely on 
facts which can be communicated, but on dispositions which 
require to be created. Art is neither to be achieved ° by effort 
of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. It is the 
instinctive and necessary result of powers which can only be 
developed through the mind of successive generations, and which 
finally burst into life under social conditions as slow of growth 
as the faculties they regulate. Whole eras of mighty history 
are summed, and the passions of dead myriads are concentrated, 
in the existence of a noble art ; and if that noble art were among 
us, we should feel it and rejoice ; not caring in the least to hear 
lectures on it ; and since it is not among us, be assured we have 
to go back to the root of it, or, at least, to the place where the 
stock of it is yet alive, and the branches began to die. 

123. And now, may I have your pardon for pointing out, 
partly with reference to matters which are at this time of greater 
moment than the arts — that if we undertook such recession to 
the vital germs of national arts that have decayed, we should 
find a more singular arrest of their power in Ireland than in any 
other European country. For in the eighth century Ireland 
possessed a school of art in her manuscripts and sculpture, which 
in many of its qualities — apparently in all essential qualities 
of decorative invention — was (mite without rival ; seeming as 



112 SESAME AND LILIES 

if it might have advanced to the highest triumphs in architect- 
ure and in painting. But there was one fatal flaw in its nature, 
by which it was stayed, and stayed with a conspicuousness of 
pause to which there is no parallel : so that, long ago, in trac- 
ing the progress of European schools from infancy to strength, 
I chose for the students of Kensington, in a lecture since pub- 
lished, two characteristic examples of early art, of equal skill ; 
but in the one case, skill which was progressive — in the other, 
skill which was at pause. In the one case, it was work recep- 
tive of correction — hungry for correction ; and in the other, 
work which inherently rejected correction. I chose for them a 
corrigible ° Eve, and an incorrigible Angel ; and I grieve to say 
that the incorrigible Angel was also an Irish Angel ! x 

124. And the fatal difference lay wholly in this. In both 
pieces of art there was an equal falling short of the needs of 
fact ; but the Lombardic Eve knew she was in the wrong, and 
the Irish Angel thought himself all right. The eager Lombar- 
dic ° sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish idea, yet 
showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the 
imperfect struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of 
beauty and law that he could not render ; there was the strain 
of effort, under conscious imperfection, in every line. But the 
Irish missal-painter ° had drawn his angel with no sense of fail- 
ure, in happy complacency, and put red dots into the palms of 
each hand, and rounded the eyes into perfect circles, and, I 
regret to say, left the mouth out altogether, with perfect satis- 
faction to himself. 

125. May I without offence ask you to consider whether 
this mode of arrest in ancient Irish art may not be indicative 
of points of character which even yet, in some measure, arrest 
your national power? I have seen much of Irish character, 
and have watched it closely, for I have also much loved it. And 

1 See " The Two Paths," p. 27. 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 113 

I think the form of failure to which it is most liable is this, — 
that being generous-hearted, and wholly intending always to do 
right, it does not attend to the external laws of right, but 
thinks it must necessarily do right because it means to do so, 
and therefore does wrong without finding it out; and then, 
when the consequences of its wrong come upon it, or upon 
others connected with it, it cannot conceive that the wrong is 
in anywise of its causing or of its doing, but flies into wrath, 
and a strange agony of desire for justice, as feeling itself wholly 
innocent, which leads it farther astray, until there is nothing 
that it is not capable of doing with a good conscience. 

126. But mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or pres- 
ent relations between Ireland and England, you have been 
wrong, and we right. Far from that, I believe that in all 
great questions of principle, and in all details of administration 
of law, you have been usually right, and we wrong ; sometimes 
in misunderstanding you, sometimes in resolute iniquity to you. 
Nevertheless, in all disputes between states, though the stronger 
is nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is often so in 
a minor degree ; and I think we sometimes admit the possibil- 
ity of our being in error, and you never do. 

127. And now, returning to the broader question, what these 
arts and labors of life have to teach us of its mystery, this is 
the first of their lessons — that the more beautiful the art, the 
more it is essentially the work of a people who feel themselves 
wrong ;° — who are striving for the fulfilment of a law, and 
the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not yet attained, 
which they feel even farther and farther from attaining the 
more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is 
the work of people who know also that they are right. The 
very sense of inevitable error from their purpose marks the 
perfectness of that purpose, and the continued sense of failure 
arises from the continued opening of the eyes more clearly to all 
the sacredest laws of truth. 



114 SESAME AND LILIES 






128. This is one lesson. The second is a very plain, and 
greatly precious one : namely — that whenever the arts and 
labors of life are fulfilled in this spirit of striving against mis- 
rule, and doing whatever we have to do, honorably and per- 
fectly, they invariably bring happiness, as much as seems possible 
to the nature of man. In all other paths, by which that hap- 
piness is pursued there is disappointment, or destruction ; for 
ambition and for passion there is no rest — no fruition ; the 
fairest pleasures of youth perish in a darkness greater than 
their past light : and the loftiest and purest love too often does 
but inflame the cloud of life with endless fire of pain. But, 
ascending from lowest to highest, through every scale of human 
industry, that industry, worthily followed, gives peace. Ask 
the laborer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine ; ask the 
patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, fiery- 
hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with the colors 
of light ; and none of these, who are true workmen, will ever 
tell you, that they have found the law of heaven ° an unkind 
one — that in the sweat of their face they should eat bread, till 
they return to the ground ; nor that they ever found it an un- 
rewarded obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the 
command, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do — do it with 
thy might." ° 

129. These are the two great and constant lessons which 
our laborers teach us of the mystery of life. But there is 
another, and a sadder one, which they cannot teach us, which 
we must read on their tombstones. 

"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads upon 
myriads of human creatures who have obeyed this law — who 
have put every breath and nerve of their being into its toil — 
who have devoted every hour, and exhausted every faculty — 
who have bequeathed their unaccomplished thoughts at death 
— who, being dead, have yet spoken, by majesty of memory, 
and strength of example. And, at last, what has all this 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 115 

11 Might M of humanity accomplished, in six thousand years ° of 
labor and sorrow ? What has it done ? Take the three chief 
occupations and arts of men, one by one, and count their achieve- 
ments. Begin with the first — the lord of them all — Agricul- 
ture. Six thousand years have passed since we were set to till 
the ground, from which we were taken. How much of it is 
tilled ? How much of that which is, wisely or well 1 In the 
very centre and chief garden ° of Europe — where the two forms ° 
of parent Christianity have had their fortresses — where the 
noble Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the noble Protes- 
tants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for dateless ages, 
their faiths and liberties — there the unchecked Alpine rivers 
yet run wild in devastation ; and the marshes, which a few 
hundred men could redeem with a year's labor, still blast their 
helpless inhabitants into fevered idiotism. That is so, in 
the centre of Europe ! While, on the near coast of Africa, 
once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a few 
sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the 
treasures of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, 
could not find a few grains of rice, for a people that asked of 
us no more ; but stood by, and saw five hundred thousand ° of 
them perish of hunger. 

130. Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next 
head of human arts — Weaving; the art of queens, honored 
of all noble Heathen women, in the person of their virgin god- 
dess — honored of all Hebrew women, by the word of their 
wisest king — " She layeth her hands ° to the spindle, and her 
hands hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the 
poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all 
her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself 
covering of tapestiy ; her clothing is silk and purple. She 
maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth girdles to the 
merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of years 
with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron ? Six 



116 SESAME AND LILIES 

thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? 
Might not every naked wall have been purple with tapestry, 
and every feeble breast fenced with sweet colors from the cold ? 
What have we done ? Our fingers are too few, it seems, to 
twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set our 
streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn 
our spinning-wheels — and, — are ive yet clothed? Are not 
the streets of the capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast 
clouts and rotten rags ? Is not the beauty of your sweet chil- 
dren left in wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honor, 
nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and the suck- 
ling of the wolf in her den ? And does not every winter's snow 
robe what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not 
shrouded ; and every winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted 
souls, to witness against you hereafter, by the voice of their 
Christ, — "I was naked, and ye clothed me not " ? 

131. Lastly — take the Art of Building — the strongest — 
proudest — most orderly — most enduring of the arts of man; 
that of which the produce is in the surest manner accumulative, 
and need not perish, or be replaced ; but if once well done, will 
stand more strongly than the unbalanced rocks — more preva- 
lently than the crumbling hills. The art which is associated 
with all civic pride ° and sacred principle ; with which men 
record their power — satisfy their enthusiasm — make sure 
their defence — define and make dear their habitation. 
And in six thousand years of building, what have we done ? 
Of the greater part of all that skill and strength, no vestige 
is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the field and impede 
the streams. But, from this waste of disorder, and of time, 
and of rage, what is left to us ? Constructive and progressive 
creatures, that we are, with ruling brains, and forming hands, 
capable of fellowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, 
in comfort, with the insects of the forest, or, in achievement, 
with the worm of the sea? The white surf rages in vain 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 117 

against the ramparts built by poor atoms of scarcely nascent 
life ; but only ridges of formless ruin mark the places where 
once dwelt our noblest multitudes. The ant and the moth 
have cells for each of their young, but our little ones lie in fes- 
tering heaps, in homes that consume them like graves; and 
night by night, from the corners of our streets, rises up the cry 
of the homeless — " I was a stranger, and ye took me not in." 

132. Must it be always thus? Is our life forever to be 
without profit — without possession? Shall the strength of its 
generations be as barren as death ; or cast away their labor, 
as the wild fig-tree ° casts her untimely figs ? Is it all a dream 
then — the desire of the eyes ° and the pride of life — or, if it be, 
might we not live in nobler dream than this? The poets and 
prophets, the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told 
us nothing about a life to come, have told us much about the 
life that is now. They have had — they also, — their dreams, 
and we have laughed at them. They have dreamed of mercy, 
and of justice ; they have dreamed of peace and good-will ; they 
have dreamed of labor undisappointecl, and of rest undisturbed ; 
they have dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in 
store ; they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of provi- 
dence in law ; of gladness of parents, and strength of children, 
and glory of grey hairs. And at these visions of theirs we 
have mocked, and held them for idle and vain, unreal and unac- 
complishable. What have we accomplished with our realities ? 
Is this what has come of our worldly wisdom, tried against 
their folly? this, our mightiest possible, against their impotent 
ideal ? or, have we only wandered among the spectra ° of a baser 
felicity, and chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of visions 
of the Almighty ; and walked after the imaginations of our evil 
hearts, instead of after the counsels of Eternity, until our lives 
— not in the likeness of the cloud of heaven, but of the smoke 
of hell — have become " as a vapor, that appeareth for a little 
time, and then vanisheth away " ? 



118 SESAME AND LILIES 

133. Does it vanish, then? Are you sure of that? — 
sure, that the nothingness of the grave will be a rest from this 
troubled nothingness ; and that the coihng shadow, which 
disquiets itself in vain,° cannot change into the smoke of the 
torment ° that ascends forever? Will any answer that they are 
sure of it, and that there is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor 
labor, whither they go ? Be it so : will you not, then, make 
as sure of the Life that now is, as you are of the Death that 
is to come? Your hearts are wholly in this world — will you 
not give them to it wisely, as well as perfectly ? And see, first 
of all, that you have hearts, and sound hearts, too, to give. 
Because you have no heaven to look for, is that any reason that 
you should remain ignorant of this wonderful and infinite earth, 
which is firmly and instantly ° given you in possession? Al- 
though your days are numbered, and the following darkness 
sure, is it necessary that you should share the degradation of the 
brute, because you are condemned to its mortality ; or live the 
life of the moth, and of the worm, because you are to compan- 
ion them in the dust ? Not so ; we may have but a few thousands 
of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only — perhaps tens ; nay, 
the longest of our time and best, looked back on, will be but as 
a moment, as the twinkling of an eye ; ° still we are men, not 
insects ; we are living spirits, not passing clouds. " He mak- 
eth the winds ° His messengers ■ the momentary fire, His minis- 
ter ; " and shall we do less than these ? Let us do the work of 
men while we bear the form of them ; and, as we snatch our 
narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our narrow 
inheritance of passion out of Immortality — even though our 
lives be as a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then 
vanisheth away. 

134. But there are some of you who believe not this — who 
think this cloud of life has no such close — that it is to float, 
revealed and illumined, upon the floor of heaven, in the day 
when ° He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him. 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 119 

Some day, you believe, within these five, or ten, or twenty years, 
for every one of us the judgment will he set, and the books 
opened. If that be true, far more than that must be true. Is 
there but one day of judgment ? Why, for us eveiy day is a 
day of judgment, — every day is a Dies Irae,° and writes its 
irrevocable verdict in the flame of its west. Think you that 
judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened? It 
waits at the doors of your houses — it waits at the corners of 
your streets ; we are in the midst of judgment ° — the insects 
that we crush are our judges — the moments we fret away are 
our judges — the elements that feed us, judge, as they minister 

— and the pleasures that deceive us, judge, as they indulge. Let 
us, for our lives, do the work of Men while we bear the form 
of them, if indeed those lives art Not as a vapor, and do Not 
vanish away. 

135. " The work of men " — and what is that ? Well, we 
may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being 
wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part 
thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get ; 
and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a 
mortal one — we want to keep back part of the price ; and we 
continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in 
a cross was the weight of it — as if it was only a thing to be 
carried, instead of to be — crucified upon. " They that are His ° 
have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts. " Does that 
mean, think you, that in time of national distress, of religious 
trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of humanity — none 
of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put themselves 
to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off 
their footman's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather 
mean, that they are ready to leave ° houses, lands, and kindreds 

— yes, and life, if need be? Life! — some of us are ready 
enough to throw that away, joyless as we have made it. But 
"station in Life," — how many of us are ready to quit that t 



120 SESAME AND LILIES 

Is it not always the great objection, where there is question of 
finding something useful to do — " We cannot leave our stations 
in Life"? 

Those of us who really cannot — that is to say, who can only 
maintain themselves by continuing in some business or salaried 
office, have already something to do ; and all that they have to 
see to is, that they do it honestly and with all their might. But 
with most people who use that apology, " remaining in the sta- 
tion of life to which Providence has called them " means keep- 
ing all the carriages, and all the footmen and large houses they 
can possibly pay for ; and, once for all, I say that if ever Provi- 
dence did put them into stations of that sort — which is not 
at all a matter of certainty — Providence is just now very dis- 
tinctly calling them out again. Levi's station ° in life was the 
receipt of custom ; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee ; and Paul's, 
the ante-chambers of the High Priest, — which " station in life " 
each had to leave, with brief notice. 

And whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those 
of us who mean to fulfil our duty ought, first, to live on as little 
as we can ; and, secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it 
we can, and to spend all we can spare in doing all the sure good 
we can. 

And sure good -is, first in feeding people, then in dressing 
people, then in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing 
people, with arts, or sciences, or any other subject of thought. 

136.° I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let 
yourselves be deceived by any of the common talk of " indis 
criminate charity." The order to us is not to feed the deserving 
hungry, nor the industrious hungry, nor the amiable and well' 
intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It is quite 
true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither 
should he eat — think of that, and every time you sit down to 
your dinner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask 
a blessing, "How much work have I done to-day for my din- 






OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 121 

ner ? " But the proper way to enforce that order on those below 
you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave vagabonds and 
honest people to starve together, but very distinctly to discern 
and seize your vagabond ; and shut your vagabond up out of 
honest people's way, and very sternly then see that, until he 
has worked, he does not eat. But the first thing is to be sure 
you have the food to give ; and, therefore, to enforce the organ- 
ization of vast activities in agriculture and in commerce, for the 
production of the wholesomest food, and proper storing and 
distribution of it, so that no famine shall any more be possible 
among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this business 
alone, and at once, for any number of people who like to engage 
in it. 

137. Secondly, dressing people — that is to say, urging every 
one within reach of your influence to be always neat and clean, 
and giving them means of being so. In so far as they abso- 
lutely refuse, you must give up the effort with respect to them, 
only taking care that no children within your sphere of influ- 
ence shall any more be brought up with such habits ; and that 
every person who is willing to dress with propriety shall have 
encouragement to do so. And the first absolutely necessary 
step toward this is the gradual adoption of a consistent dress 
for different ranks ° of persons, so that their rank shall be 
known by their dress ; and the restriction of the changes of 
fashion within certain limits. All which appears for the present 
quite impossible ; but it is only so far as even difficult as it is 
difficult to conquer our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear 
what we are not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of 
mine, that these mean and shallow vices are unconquerable by 
Christian women. 

138. And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you may 
think should have been put first, but I put it third, because we 
must feed and clothe people where we find them, and lodge 
'•■hem afterwards. And providing lodgement for them means p 



122 SESAME AND LILIES 

great deal of vigorous legislature, and cutting down of vested 
interests that stand in the way, and after that, or before that, 
so far as we can get it, thorough sanitary and remedial action 
in the houses that we have ; and then the building of more, 
strongly, beautifully, and in groups of limited extent, kept in 
proportion to their streams, and walled round, so that there 
may be no festering and wretched suburb anywhere, but clean 
and busy street within, and the open country without, with a 
belt of beautiful garden and orchard round the walls, so that 
from any part of the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and 
sight of far horizon, might be reachable in a few minutes' walk, 
This is the final aim ; but in immediate action every minor and 
possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, we can ; roofs 
mended that have holes in them — fences patched that have 
gaps in them — walls buttressed ° that totter — and floors propped 
that shake ; cleanliness and order enforced with our own hands 
and eyes, till we are breathless, every day. And all the fine 
arts will healthily follow. I myself have washed a flight ° of 
stone stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, 
where they hadn't washed their stairs since they first went up 
them ; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon. 

139. These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life j 
and the law for every Christian man and woman is, that they 
shall be in direct service toward one of these three needs, as far 
as is consistent with their own special occupation, and if they 
have no special business, then wholly in one of these services. 
And out of such exertion in plain duty all other good will come ; 
for in this direct contention with material evil, you will find out 
the real nature of all evil ; you will discern by the various 
kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and main antago- 
nism to good ; also you will find the most unexpected helps and 
profound lessons given, and truths will come thus down to us 
which the speculation of all our lives would never have raised 
us up to. You will find nearly every educational problem solved, 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 123 

as soon as you truly want to do something ; everybody will 
become of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what is 
best for them to know in that use. Competitive examination ° 
will then, and not till then, be wholesome, because it will be 
daily, and calm, and in practice ; and on these familiar arts, 
and minute, but certain and serviceable knowledges, will be 
surely edified and sustained the greater arts and splendid theo- 
retical sciences. 

140. But much more than this. On such holy and simple 
practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an infallible religion. 
The greatest of all the mysteries of life, and the most terrible, 
is the corruption of even the sincerest religion which is not 
daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and helpful action. 
Helpful action, observe ! for there is just one law, which, 
obeyed, keeps all religions pure — forgotten, makes them all 
false. Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we 
allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ 
from other people, we are wrong, and in the devil's power. 
That is the essence of the Pharisee's thanksgiving ° — " Lord, I 
thank thee that I am not as other men are." At every 
moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in 
what we differ from other people, but in what we agree with 
them ; and the moment we find we can agree as to anything 
that should be done, kind or good, (and who but fools couldn't?) 
then do it ; push at it together : you can't quarrel in a side-by- 
side push ; but the moment that even the best men stop push- 
ing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, 
and it's all over. I will not speak of the crimes which in past 
times have been committed in the name of Christ, nor of the 
follies which are at this hour held to be consistent with obedi- 
ence to Him ; but I will speak of the morbid corruption and 
waste of vital power in religious sentiment, by which the pure 
strength of that which should be the guiding soul of every 
nation, the splendor of its youthful manhood, and spotless light 



124 SESAME AND LILIES 

of its maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may see con- 
tinually girls who have never been taught to do a single useful 
thing thoroughly ; who cannot sew, who cannot cook, who can- 
not cast an account, nor prepare a medicine, whose whole life 
has been passed either in play or in pride ; you will find girls 
like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate 
passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support 
them through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and 
vain meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of which 
no syllable was ever yet to be understood but through a deed ; 
all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made 
vain, and the glory of their pure conscience warped into fruitless 
agony concerning questions which the laws of common service- 
able life would have either solved for them in an instant, or 
kept out of their way. Give such a girl any true work that 
will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the 
consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the 
better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm 
will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent 
peace. 

So with our youths. We once taught them to make Latin 
verses, and called them educated ; now we teach them to leap 
and to row, to hit a ball with a bat, and call them educated. 
Can they plough, can they sow, can they plant at the right time, 
or build with a steady hand ? Is it the effort of their lives to 
be chaste, knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word 
and deed ? Indeed it is, with some, nay, with many, and the 
strength of England is in them, and the hope; but we have 
to turn their courage from the toil of war to the toil of mercy ; 
and their intellect from dispute of words to discernment of 
things ; and their knighthood from the errantry of adventure 
to the state and fidelity of a kingly power. And then, indeed, 
shall abide, for them and for us, an incorruptible felicity, and 
an infallible religion ; shall abide for us Faith, no more to be 



OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 125 

assailed by temptation, 110 more to be defended by wrath and 
by fear ; — shall abide with us Hope, no more to be quenched 
by the years that overwhelm, or made ashamed by the shadows 
that betray : — shall abide for us, and with us, the greatest of 
these ; the abiding will, the abiding name of our Father. For 
the greatest of these is Charity. 



THE 
KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER 



THE 

KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER; 

OR, 

THE BLACK BROTHERS 



CHAPTER I 



HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS 
WAS INTERFERED WITH BY SOUTH-WEST WIND, ESQUIRE 

In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria ° there was, in old 
time, a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It 
was surrounded, on all sides, by steep and rocky mountains, 
rising into peaks, which were always covered with snow, and 
from which a number of torrents descended in constant cata- 
racts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so 
high, that, when the sun had set to everything else, and all below 
was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so 
that it looked like a shower of gold. It was, therefore, called 
by the people of the neighborhood, the Golden River. It was 
strange that none of these streams fell into the valley itself. 
They all descended on the other side of the mountains, and 
wound away through broad plains and by populous cities. 
But the clouds were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills, 
and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that in time of 
drought and heat, when all the corn try round was burnt up, 
k 129 



130 THE &ING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER y 

there was still rain in the little valley ; and its crops were so 
heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so red, and its grapes 
so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it 
was a marvel to every one who beheld it, and was commonly 
called the Treasure Valley. 

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers, 
called Schwartz, Hans, and.Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the 
two elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eye- 
brows and small dull eyes, which were always half shut, so that 
you couldn't see into them, and always fancied they saw very 
far into you. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley, and 
very good farmers they were. They killed everything that did 
not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds, because they 
pecked the fruit; and killed the hedgehogs, lest they should 
suck the cows ; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs 
in the kitchen ; and smothered the cicadas, which used to sing 
.all summer in the lime trees. They worked their servants with- 
out any wages, till they would not work any more, and then 
quarrelled with them, and turned them out of doors without 
paying them. It would have been very odd, if with such a 
farm, and such a system of farming, they hadn't got very rich ; ° 
and very rich they did get. They generally contrived to keep 
their corn ° by them till it was very dear, and then sell it for 
twice its value ; they had heaps of gold lying about on their 
floors, yet it was never known that they had given so much as 
a penny ° or a crust in charity ; they never went to mass ; 
grumbled perpetually at paying tithes ; and were, in a word, of 
so cruel and grinding a temper, as to receive from all those 
with whom they had any dealings, the nick-name of the 
" Black Brothers." 

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in 
both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly 
be imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old, 
fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. 'He 






OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 131 

did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or 
rather, they did not agree with him. He was usually appointed 
the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to 
roast, which was not often ; for, to do the brothers justice, 
they were hardly less sparing upon themselves ° than upon 
other people. At other times he used to clean the shoes, floors, 
and sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was left on 
them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of 
dry blows, by way of education. 

Things went on in this manner for a long time. At last 
came a very wet summer, and everything went wrong in the 
country around. The hay had hardly been got in, when the 
haystacks were floated bodily down to the sea by an inundation ; 
the vines were cut to pieces with the hail ; the corn was all 
killed by a black blight; only in the Treasure Valley, as 
usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain no- 
where else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. 
Everybody came to buy corn at the farm, and went away pour- 
ing maledictions on the Black Brothers. They asked what 
they liked, and got it, except from the poor people, who could 
only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very door, 
without the slightest regard or notice. 

It was drawing toward winter, and very cold weather, when 
one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual 
warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he 
was to let nobody in, and give nothing out. Gluck sat down 
quite close to the fire, for it was raining very hard, and the kitchen 
walls were by no means dry or comfortable looking. He turned 
and turned, and the roast got nice and brown. " What a pity," 
thought Gluck, " my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I'm 
sure, when they've got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and 
nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it Mould 
do their hearts good to have somebody to cat it with them/' 

Just as he spoke, there came a double knock at the house 



132 THE KIXG OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied 
up — more like a puff than a knock. 

"It must be the wind," said Gluck; "nobody else would 
venture to knock double knocks at our door." ° 

No ; it wasn't the wind : there it came again very hard, and 
what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in 
a hurry, and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. 
Glu:k went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to 
see who it was. 

It was the most extraordinary looking little gentleman ° he 
had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly 
brass-colored; his cheeks were very round, and very red, and 
might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing 
a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours ; his eyes 
twinkled merrily through long silky eyelashes, his moustaches 
curled twice round like a corkscrew on each side of his mouth, 
and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt color, de- 
scended far over his shoulders. He was about four feet six in 
height, and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same alti- 
tude, decorated with a black feather some three feet long. His 
doublet was prolonged behind into something resembling a vio- 
lent exaggeration of what is now termed a "swallow tail," but 
was much obscured by the swelling folds of an enormous black, 
glossy-looking cloak, which must have been very much too long 
in calm weather, as the wind, whistling round the old house, 
carried it clear out from the wearer's shoulders to about four 
times his own length. 

Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the singular appearance 
of his visitor, that he remained fixed without uttering a word, 
until the old gentleman, having performed another, and a more 
energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after 
his fly-away cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck's little 
yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes 
very w T ide open indeed. 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 133 

" Hollo ! " said the little gentleman, " that's not the way to 
answer the door : I'm wet, let me in." 

To do the little gentleman justice, he was wet. His feather 
hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail, dripping 
like an umbrella ; and from the ends of his moustaches the 
water was running into his waistcoat pockets, and out again 
like a mill stream. 

"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, "I'm very sorry, but I really 
can't." 

" Can't what ! " said the old gentleman. 

"I can't let you in, sir — I can't, indeed; my brothers would 
beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do 
you want, sir?" 

" Want ? " said the old gentleman, petulantly. " I want 
fire, and shelter ; and there's your great fire there blazing, 
crackling, and dancing on the walls, with nobody to feel it. Let 
me in, I say ; I only want to warm myself." 

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the 
window, that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, 
and when he turned, and saw the beautiful fire rustling and 
roaring, and throwing long bright tongues up the chimney, as 
if it were licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of 
mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be burning 
away for nothing. " He does look very wet," said little Gluck ; 
" I'll just let him in for a quarter of an hour." Round he went 
to the door, and opened it ; and as the little gentleman walked 
in, there came a gust of wind through the house, that made the 
old chimneys totter. 

" That's a good boy," said the little gentleman. " Never 
mind your brothers. I'll talk to them." 

"Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. "I can't 
let 3'ou stay till they come ; they'd be the death of me." 

" Dear me," said the old gentleman, " I'm very sorry to hear 
that. How long may I stay ? " 



134 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

" Only till the mutton's done, sir," replied Gluck, " and it's 
very brown." 

Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen, and sat him- 
self down on the hob,° with the top of his cap accommodated 
up the chimney, for it was a great deal too high for the roof. 

" You'll soon dry there, sir," said Gluck, and sat down again 
to turn the mutton. But the old gentleman did not dry there, 
but went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the fire 
fizzed, and sputtered, and began to look very black, and uncom- 
fortable : never was such a cloak ; every fold in it ran like a 
gutter. 

" I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck at length, after watching the 
water spreading in long, quicksilverlike streams over the floor 
for a quarter of an hour ; " mayn't I take your cloak? " 

" No, thank you," said the old gentleman. 

" Your cap, sir ? " 

"I am all right, thank you," said the old gentleman, rather 
gruffly. 

" But, — sir, — I'm very sorry," said Gluck, hesitatingly ; 
" but — really, sir, — you're — putting the fire out." 

" It'll take longer to do the mutton, then," replied his visitor, 
drily. 

Gluck was very much puzzled by the behavior of his guest ; 
it was such a strange mixture of coolness and humility. He 
turned away at the string meditatively for another five minutes. 

" That mutton looks very nice," said the old gentleman at 
length. " Can't you give me a little bit? " 

" Impossible, sir," said Gluck. 

" I'm very hungry," continued the old gentleman : " I've had 
nothing to eat yesterday, nor to-day. They surely couldn't miss 
a bit from the knuckle ! " 

He spoke in so very melancholy a tone, that it quite melted 
Gluck's heart. " They promised me one slice to-day, sir," said 
he ; "I can give you that, but not a bit more." 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 135 

" That's a good boy/' said the old gentleman again. 

Then Gluck warmed a plate, and sharpened a knife. " I 
don't care if I do get beaten for it," thought he. Just as he 
had cut a large slice out of the mutton, there came a tremen- 
dous rap at the door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob, as 
if it had suddenly become inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted 
the slice into the mutton again, with desperate efforts at exacti- 
tude, and ran to open the door. 

"What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?" said 
Schwartz, as he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck's 
face. " Ay ! what for, indeed, you little vagabond ? " said 
Hans, administering an educational box on the ear, as he fol- 
lowed his brother into the kitchen. 

" Bless my soul ! " said Schwartz when he opened the door. 

" Amen," said the little gentleman, who had taken his cap 
off, and was standing in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with 
the utmost possible velocity. 

"Who's that?" said Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin, 
and turning to Gluck with a fierce frown. 

11 1 don't know, indeed, brother," said Gluck in great terror. 

" How did he get in 1 " roared Schwartz. 

"My dear brother," said Gluck, deprecatingly, "he was so 
very wet ! " 

The rolling-pin was descending on Gluck's head ; but, at the 
instant, the old gentleman interposed his conical cap, on which 
it crashed with a shock that shook the water out of it all over 
the room. What was very odd, the rolling-pin no sooner touched 
the cap,° than it flew out of Schwartz's hand, spinning like a 
straw in a high wind, and fell into the corner at the further end 
of the room. 

" Who are you, sir ? " demanded Schwartz, turning upon 
him. 

" What's your business ? " snarled Hans. 

" I'm a poor old man, sir," the little gentleman began very 



136 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

modestly, " and I saw your fire through the window, and begged 
shelter for a quarter of an hour." 

" Have the goodness to walk out again, then," said Schwartz. 
" We've quite enough water in our kitchen, without making it 
a drying-house." 

" It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir ; look at my 
grey hairs." They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you 
before. 

" Ay !" said Hans, " there are enough of them to keep you 
warm. Walk ! " 

" I'm very, very hungry, sir ; couldn't you spare me a bit of 
bread before I go ? " 

" Bread, indeed ! " said Schwartz ; " do you suppose we've 
nothing to do with our bread, but to give it to such red nosed 
fellows as you ? " 

"Why don't you sell your feather?" said Hans, sneeringly. 
11 Out with you." 

" A little bit," said the old gentleman. 

"Be off!" said Schwartz. 

"Pray, gentlemen." 

" Off, and be hanged ! " cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. 
But he had no sooner touched the old gentleman's collar, than 
away he went after the rolling-pin, spinning round and round, 
till he fell into the corner on the top of it. Then Schwartz 
was very angry, and ran at the old gentleman to turn him out ; 
but he also had hardly touched him, when away he went after 
Hans ° and the rolling-pin, and hit his head against the wall as 
he tumbled into the corner. And so there they lay, all three. 

Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in 
the opposite direction ; continued to spin until his long cloak 
was all wound neatly about him ; clapped his cap on his head, 
very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without 
going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his cork- 
screw moustaches, and replied with perfect coolness : " Gentle- 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 137 

men, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o'clock 
to-night I'll call again ; ° after such a refusal of hospitality as I 
have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit is 
the last I ever pay you." 

"If ever I catch you here again," muttered Schwartz, com- 
ing, half frightened, out of the corner — but, before he could 
finish his sentence, the old gentleman had shut the house door 
behind him with a great bang : and there drove past the win- 
dow at the same instant, a wreath of ragged cloud, that whirled 
and rolled away down the valley in all manner of shapes ; turn- 
ing over and over in the air ; and melting away at last in a 
gush of rain. 

" A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck ! " said Schwartz. 
" Dish the mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick 
again — bless me, why the mutton's been cut ! " 

"You promised me one slice, brother, you know," said 
Gluck. . 

" Oh ! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to 
catch all the gravy. It'll be long before I promise you such a 
thing again. Leave the room, sir ; and have the kindness to 
wait in the coal-cellar till I call you." 

Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate 
as much mutton as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard, 
and proceeded to get very drunk after dinner. 

Such a night as it was ! Howling wind, and rushing rain, 
without intermission. The brothers had just sense enough left 
to put up all the shutters, and double bar the door, before they 
went to bed. They usually slept in the same room. As the 
clock struck twelve, they were both awakened by a tremendous 
crash. Their door burst open with a violence that shook the 
house from top to bottom. 

" What's that ? " cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed. 

" Only I," said the little gentleman. 

The two brothers sat up on their bolster, and stared into \\\o 



138 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moon- 
beam, which found its way through a hole in the shutter, they 
could see in the midst of it, an enormous foam globe, spinning 
round, and bobbing up and down like a cork, on which, as on 
a most luxurious cushion, reclined the little old gentleman, cap 
and all. There was plenty of room for it now, for the roof was 
off. 

" Sorry to incommode you," said their visitor, ironically. 
" I'm afraid your beds are dampish ; perhaps you had better 
go to your brother's room : I've left the ceiling on, there." 

They required no second admonition, but rushed into Gluck's 
room, wet through, and in an agony of terror. 

" You'll find my card on the kiteheu table," the old gentleman 
called after them. "Remember, the last visit." 

" Pray Heaven it may ! " said Schwartz, shuddering. And the 
foam globe disappeared. 

Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of 
Gluck's little window in the morning. The Treasure Valley 
was one mass of ruin and desolation. The inundation had 
swept away trees, crops, and cattle, and left in their stead, a 
w T aste of red sand, and grey mud. The two brothers crept 
shivering and horror-stricken into the kitchen. The water had 
gutted the whole first floor; corn, money, almost every mov- 
able thing had been swept away, and there was left only a 
small white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, 
long-legged letters, were engraved the words : — 



tfowtA-we,frt UyincL, €^fviiv&. 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 139 



CHAPTER II 

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE 
VISIT OF THE SOUTH-WEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LIT- 
TLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF THE 
GOLDEN RIVER 

South-west Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After 
the momentous visit above related, he entered the Treasure 
Valley no more ; and, what was worse, he had so much influ- 
ence with his relations, the West Winds in general, and used it 
so effectually, that they all adopted a similar line of conduct. 
So no rain fell in the valley from one year's end to another. 
Though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains 
below, the inheritance of the Three Brothers was a desert. What 
had once been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shift- 
ing heap of red sand ; and the brothers, unable longer to con- 
tend with the adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony ° 
in despair, to seek some means of gaining a livelihood among 
the cities and people of the plains. All their money was gone, 
and they had nothing left but some curious old-fashioned pieces 
of gold plate, the last remnants of their ill-gotten wealth. 

" Suppose we turn goldsmiths?" said Schwartz to Hans, 
as they entered the large city. "It is a good knave's trade; 
we can put a great deal of copper into the gold, without any 
one's finding it out." 

The thought was agreed to be a very good one ; they hired a 
furnace, and turned goldsmiths. But two slight circumstances 
affected their trade : the first, that people did not approve of 



140 THE KING Or THE GOLDEN RIVEB ; 

the coppered gold ; the second, that the two elder brothers, 
whenever they had sold -any thing, used to leave little Gluck to 
mind the furnace, and go and drink out the money in the ale- 
house next door. So they melted all their gold, without mak- 
ing money enough to buy more, and were at last reduced to one 
large drinking mug, which an uncle of his had given to little 
Gluck, and which he was very fond of, and would not have 
parted with for the world; though he never drank anything out 
of it but milk and water. The mug was a very odd mug to 
look at. The handle was formed of two wreaths of flowing 
golden hair, so finely spun that it looked more like silk than 
metal, and these wreaths descended into, and mixed with, a 
beard and whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship, which 
surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face, of the reddest 
gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a pair of 
eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference. 
It was impossible to drink out of the mug without being sub- 
jected to an intense gaze of the side of these eyes ; and Schwartz 
positively averred, that once, after emptying it, full of Rhenish, 
seventeen times, he had seen them wink ! When it came to the 
mug's turn to be made into spoons, it half broke poor little 
Gluck's heart \ but the brothers only laughed at him, tossed 
the mug into the melting-pot, and staggered out to the ale- 
house ; leaving him, as usual, to pour the gold into bars, 
when it was all ready. 

When they were gone, Gluck took a farewell look at his old 
friend in the melting-pot. The flowing hair was all gone ; 
nothing remained but the red nose, and the sparkling eyes, 
which looked more malicious than ever. " And no wonder," 
thought Gluck, " after being treated in that way." He saun- 
tered disconsolately to the window, and sat himself down 
to catch the fresh evening air, and escape the hot breath of 
the furnace. Now this window commanded a direct view of the 
range of mountains, which, as I told you before, overhung the 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 141 

Treasure Valley, and more especially of the peak from which 
fell the Golden River. It was just at the close of the day, and, 
when Gluck sat down at the window, he saw the rocks of 
the mountain tops, all crimson, and purple with the sunset; 
and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quiver- 
ing about them ; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a wav- 
ing column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with the 
double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it, 
flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray. 

" Ah ! " said Gluck, aloud, after he had looked at it for a 
while, " if that river were really all gold, what a nice thing it 
would be." 

"No, it wouldn't, Gluck," said a clear metallic voice, close 
at his ear. 

"Bless me, what's that?" exclaimed Gluck, jumping up. 
There was nobody there. He looked round the room, and under 
the table, and a great many times behind him, but there was 
certainly nobody there, and he sat down again at the window. 
This time he didn't speak, but he couldn't help thinking again 
that it would be very convenient if the river were really all gold. 

" Not at all, my boy," said the same voice, louder than before. 

" Bless me ! " said Gluck again, "what is that ? " He looked 
again into all the corners, and cupboards, and then began turn- 
ing round, and round, as fast as he could in the middle of the 
room, thinking there was somebody behind him, when the same 
voice struck again on his ear. It was singing now very merrily, 
"Lala-lira-la" ; no words, only a soft running effervescent mel- 
ody, something like that of a kettle on the boil. Gluck looked 
out of the window. No, it was certainly in the house. Up stairs, 
and down stairs. No, it was certainly in that very room, coming 
in quicker time, and clearer notes, every moment. "Lala-lira- 
la." All at once it struck Gluck, that it sounded louder near 
the furnace. He ran to the opening, and looked in : yes, he 
saw right, it seemed to be coming, not only out of the furnace, 



142 THE EIXG OF THE GOLDEX RIVER ; 

but out of the pot. He uncovered it, and ran back in a great 
fright, for the pot was certainly singing ! He stood in the far- 
thest comer of the room, with his hands up, and his mouth 
open, for a minute or two, when the singing stopped, and the 
voice became clear, and pronunciative. 

" Hollo ! " said the voice. 

Gluck made no answer. 

" Hollo ! Gluck, my boy," said the pot again. 

Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the 
crucible, drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold 
was all melted, and its surface as smooth and polished as a river ; 
but instead of reflecting little Gluck's head, as he looked in, he 
saw meeting his glance from beneath the gold, the red nose, and 
sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder, 
and sharper than ever he had seen them in his life. 

11 Come, Gluck, my boy/' said the voice out of the pot again, 
" I'm all right ; pour me out." 

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the 
kind. 

" Pour me out, I say," said the voice, rather gruffly. 

Still Gluck couldn't move. 

" Will you pour me out?" said the voice, passionately, " I'm 
too hot," 

By a violent effort, Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, 
took hold of the crucible, and sloped it, so as to pour out the 
gold. But instead of a liquid stream, there came out, first, a 
pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat-tails, then a pair 
of arms stuck a-kimbo ; and, finally, the well-known head of his 
friend the mug ; all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, 
stood up energetically on the floor, in the shape of a little 
golden dwarf, about a foot and a half high. 

" That's right ! " said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs, 
and then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down, 
and as far around as it would go, for five minutes, without stop- 









OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 143 

ping ; apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite 
correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in 
speechless amazement. He was dressed in a slashed doublet of 
spun gold, so fine in its texture, that the prismatic colors gleamed 
over it, as if on a surface of mother of pearl ; and, over this 
brilliant doublet, his hair and beard fell full half way to the 
ground, in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate, that Gluck could 
hardly tell where they ended ; they seemed to melt into air. 
The features of the face, however, were by no means finished 
with the same delicacy ; they were rather coarse, slightly inclin- 
ing to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of a 
very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small pro- 
prietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he 
turned his small sharp eyes full on Gluck, and stared at him 
deliberately for a minute or two. "No, it wouldn't, Gluck, 
my boy," said the little man. 

This was certainly rather an abrupt, and unconnected mode 
of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to 
refer to the course of Gluck's thoughts, which had first pro- 
duced the dwarfs observations out of the pot ; but whatever it 
referred to, Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum. 

"Wouldn't it, sir?" said Gluck, very mildly, and submis- 
sively indeed. 

"No," said the dwarf, conclusively, "no, it wouldn't." And 
with that, the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows, and 
took two turns, of three feet long, up and down the room, lift- 
ing his legs up very high, and setting them down very hard. 
This pause gave time for Gluck to collect his thoughts a little, 
and, seeing no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with 
dread, and feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement, he 
ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy. 

" Pray, sir," said Gluck, rather hesitatingly, " were you my 
mug ? " 

On which the little man turned sharp round, walked straight 



144 THE KIXG OF THE GOLDEX RIVER ; 

up to Gluck, and drew himself up to his full height. " I," said 
the little man, " am the King of the Golden River." Where- 
upon he turned about again, and took two more turns, some six 
feet long, in order to allow time for the consternation which this 
announcement produced in his auditor to evaporate. After 
which, he again walked up to Gluck, and stood still, as if 
expecting some comment on his communication. 

Gluck determined to say something at all events. " I hope 
your Majesty is very well," said Gluck. 

" Listen ! " said the little man, deigning no reply to this po- 
lite inquiry. " I am the King of what you mortals call the 
Golden River. The shape you saw me in, was owing to the 
malice of a stronger king, from whose enchantments you have 
this instant freed me. What I have seen of you, and your con- 
duct to your wicked brothers, renders me willing to serve you ; 
therefore, attend to what I tell you. Whoever shall climb to 
the top of that mountain from which you see the Golden River 
issue, and shall cast into the stream at its source, three drops of 
holy water, for him, and for him only, the river shall turn to 
gold. But no one failing in his first, can succeed in a second 
attempt ; and if auy one shall cast unholy water into the river, 
it will overwhelm him, and he will become a black stone." So 
saying, the King of the Golden River turned away and deliber- 
ately walked into the centre of the hottest flame of the furnace. 
His figure became red, white, transparent, dazzling — a blaze 
of intense light — rose, trembled, and disappeared. The King 
of the Golden River had evaporated. 

" Oh ! " cried poor Gluck, running to look up the chimney 
after him ; "oh, dear, dear, dear me ! My mug ! my mug ! 
my mug ! " 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 145 



CHAPTER III 

HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN 
RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN 

The King of the Golden River had hardly made the extraor- 
dinary exit related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz 
came roaring into the house, very savagely drunk. The dis- 
covery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect 
of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over 
Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour ; at 
the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of 
chairs, and requested to know what he had got to say for himself. 
Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, they did not 
believe a word. They beat him again, till their arms were 
tired, and staggered to bed. In the morning, however, the 
steadiness with which he adhered to his story obtained him 
some degree of credence ; the immediate consequence of which 
was, that the two brothers, after wrangling a long time on the 
knotty question, which of them should try his fortune first, drew 
their swords and began fighting. The noise of the fray alarmed 
the neighbors, who, finding they could not pacify the comba- 
tants, sent for the constable. 

Hans, on hearing of this, contrived to escape, and hid him- 
self; but Schwartz was taken before the magistrate, fined for 
breaking the peace, and, having drunk out his last penny the 
evening before, was thrown into prison till he should pay. 

When Hans heard this, he was much delighted, and deter- 
mined to set out immediately for the Golden River. How to 



146 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

get the holy water, was the question. He went to the priest, 
but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned 
a character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the 
first time in his life, and, under pretence of crossing himself, 
stole a cupful, and returned home in triumph. 

Next morning he got up before the sun rose, put the holy 
water into a strong flask, and two bottles of wine and some 
meat in a basket, slung them over his back, took his alpine 
staff in his hand, and set off for the mountains. 

On his way out of the town he had to pass the prison, and 
as he looked in at the windows, whom should he see but 
Schwartz himself peeping out of the bars, and looking very 
disconsolate. 

" Good morning, brother," said Hans ; " have you any mes- 
sage for the King of the Golden River 1 " 

Schwartz gnashed his teeth with rage, and shook the bars 
with all his strength; but Hans only laughed at him, and 
advising him to make himself comfortable till he came back 
again, shouldered his basket, shook the bottle of holy water in 
Schwartz's face till it frothed again, and marched off in the 
highest spirits in the world. 

It was, indeed, a morning that might have made any one 
happy, even with no Golden Eiver to seek for. Level lines of 
dewy mist lay stretched along the valley, out of which rose the 
massy mountains — their lower cliffs in pale grey shadow, 
hardly distinguishable from the floating vapor, but gradually 
ascending till they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp 
touches of ruddy color, along the angular crags, and pierced, 
in long level rays, through their fringes of spear-like pine. 
Far above, shot up red splintered masses of castellated rock, 
jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here 
and there a streak of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms 
like a line of forked lightning ; and, far beyond, and far above 
all these, fainter than the morning cloud, but purer and 



Oft, THE BLACK BROTHERS 147 

changeless, slept, in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of the 
eternal snow. 

The Golden Kiver, which sprang from one of the lower and 
snowless elevations, was now nearly in shadow; all but the 
uppermost jets of spray, which rose like slow smoke above the 
undulating line of the cataract, and floated away in feeble 
wreaths upon the morning wind. 

On this object, and on this alone, Hans' eyes and thoughts 
were fixed ; forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off 
at an imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted him 
before he had scaled the first range of the green and low hills. 
He was, moreover, surprised, on surmounting them, to find that 
a large glacier, of whose existence, notwithstanding his previ- 
ous knowledge of the mountains, he had been absolutely igno- 
rant, lay between him and the source of the Golden River. 
He entered on it with the boldness of a practised mountaineer ; 
yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so 
dangerous a glacier in his life. The ice was excessively slip- 
pery, and out of all its chasms came wild sounds of gushing 
water ; not monotonous or low, but changeful and loud, rising 
occasionally into drifting passages of wild melody, then break- 
ing off' into short melancholy tones, or sudden shrieks, resem- 
bling those of human voices in distress or pain. The ice was 
broken into thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans 
thought, like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There 
seemed a curious expression about all their outlines — a per- 
petual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful. 
Myriads of deceitful shadows, and lurid lights, played and 
floated about and through the pale blue pinnacles, dazzling and 
confusing the sight of the traveller ; while his ears grew dull 
and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar of the 
concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased upon 
him as he advanced ; the ice crashed and yawned into fresh 
chasms at his feet, tottering spires nodded around him, and 



148 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER ; 

fell thundering across bis path • and though he had repeatedly 
faced these dangers on the most terrific glaciers, and in the 
wildest weather, it was with a new and oppressive feeling 
of panic terror that he leaped the last chasm, and flung 
himself, exhausted and shuddering, on the firm turf of the 
mountain. 

He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which 
became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now 
no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating 
some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst ; 
an hour's repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the 
indomitable spirit of avarice, he resumed his laborious journey. 

His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks, 
without a blade of grass to ease the foot, or a projecting angle 
to afford an inch of shade from the south sun. It was past 
noon, and the rays beat intensely upon the steep path, while 
the whole atmosphere was motionless, and penetrated with 
heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodily fatigue 
with which Hans was now afflicted; glance after glance he 
cast on the flask of water which hung at his belt. " Three 
drops are enough," at last thought he; "I may, at least, cool 
my lips with it." 

He opened the flask, and was raising it to his lips, when his 
eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him ; he thought 
it moved. It was a small dog, apparently in the last agony of 
death from thirst. Its tongue was out, its jaws dry, its 
limbs extended lifelessly, and a swarm of black ants were 
crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye moved to the 
bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank, 
spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did 
not know how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow 
had suddenly come across the blue sky. 

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment ; 
and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 149 

throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts 
sounded like mockery in his ears ; they were all distant, and 
his thirst increased every moment. Another hour passed, and 
he again looked down to the flask at his side ; it was half 
empty ; but there was much more than three drops in it. He 
stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved 
in the path above him. It was a fair child, stretched nearly 
lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes 
closed, and its lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliber- 
ately, drank, and passed on. And a dark grey cloud came 
over the sun, and long, snake-like shadows crept up along the 
mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, 
but its descent seemed to bring no coolness ; the leaden weight 
of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal 
was near. He saw the cataract of the Golden River springing 
from the hillside, scarcely five hundred feet above him. He 
paused for a moment to breathe, and sprang on to complete his 
task. 

At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear. He turned, and 
saw a grey-haired old man extended on the rocks. His eyes 
were sunk, his features deadly pale, and gathered into an ex- 
pression of despair. " Water ! " he stretched his arms to Hans, 
and cried feebly, "Water ! I am dying." 

" I have none," replied Hans ; " thou hast had thy share of life." 
He strode over the prostrate body, and darted on. And a flash 
of blue lightning rose out of the East, shaped like a sword • it 
shook thrice over the whole heaven, and left it dark with one 
heavy, impenetrable shade. The sun was setting; it plunged 
toward the horizon like a red-hot ball. 

The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans' ear. He stood 
at the brink of the chasm through which it ran. Its waves 
were filled with the red glory of the sunset : they shook their 
crests like tongues of fire, and flashes of bloody light gleamed 
along their foam. Their sound came mightier and mightier on 



150 THE KIXG OF THE EX BITER; 

baa senses; his brain grew giddy with the prolonged thunder. 
Shuddering, he drew the flask from his girdle, and hurled it into 
the centre of the torrent. As he did so, an icy chill shot through 
his limbs : he staggered, shrieked, and felL The watc 

his cry. And the moaning of the river rose wildly in: 
night, as it gushed over 

The Black Sto>~e.° 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 151 



CHAPTER IV 

HOW MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE 
GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN 

Poor little Gluck waited very anxiously alone in the house, 
for Hans' return. Finding he did not come back, he was terri- 
bly frightened, and went and told Schwartz in the prison, all 
that had happened. Then Schwartz was very much pleased, 
and said that Hans must certainly have been turned into a black 
stone, and he should have all the gold to himself. But Gluck 
was very sorry, and cried all night. When he got up in the 
morning, there was no bread in the house, nor any money ; so 
Gluck went, and hired himself to another goldsmith, and he 
worked so hard, and so neatly, and so long every day, that he 
soon got money enough together, to pay his brother's fine, and 
he went, and gave it all to Schwartz, and Schwartz got out of 
prison. Then Schwartz was quite pleased, and said he should 
have some of the gold of the river. But Gluck only begged he 
would go and see what had become of Hans. 

Now when Schwartz had heard that Hans had stolen the 
holy water, he thought to himself that such a proceeding might 
not be considered altogether correct by the King of the Golden 
River, and determined to manage matters better. So he took 
some more of Gluck's money, and went to a bad priest, who 
gave him some holy water very readily for it. Then Schwartz 
was sure it was all quite right. So Schwartz got up early in 
the morning, before the sun rose, and took some bread and wine, 
in a basket, and put his holy water in a flask, and set off for 



152 THE KING OF THE GOLDEX RIVER ; 

the mountains. Like his brother he was much surprised at the 
sight of the glacier, and had great difficulty in crossing it, even 
after leaving his basket behind him. The day was cloudless, 
but not bright : there was a heavy purple haze hanging over the 
sky, and the hills looked lowering and gloomy. And as Schwartz 
climbed the steep rock path, the thirst came upon him, as it had 
upon his brother, until he lifted his flask to his lips to drink. 
Then he saw the fair child lying near him on the rocks, and it 
cried to him, and moaned for water. "Water, indeed," said 
Schwartz ; "I haven't half enough for myself," and passed on. 
And as he went he thought the sunbeams grew more dim, and 
he saw a low bank of black cloud rising out of the West ; and, 
when he had climbed for another hour the thirst overcame him 
again, and he would have drunk. Then he saw the old man 
lying before him on the path, and heard him cry out for water. 
"Water, indeed," said Schwartz, "I haven't half enough for 
myself," and on he went. 

Then again the light seemed to fade from before his eyes, and 
he looked up, and, behold, a mist, of the color of blood, had come 
over the sun ; and the bank of black cloud had risen very high, 
and its edges were tossing and tumbling like the waves of the 
angry sea. And they cast long shadows, which flickered over 
Schwartz's path. 

Then Schwartz climbed for another hour, and again his thirst 
returned ; and as he lifted his flask to his lips, he thought he saw 
his brother Hans lying exhausted on the path before him, and, 
as he gazed, the figure stretched its arms to him, and cried for 
water. "Ha, ha," laughed Schwartz, " are you there? remem- 
ber the prison bars, my boy. Water, indeed ! do you suppose 
I carried it all the way up here for you ? " And he strode over 
the figure ; yet, as he passed, he thought he saw a strange ex- 
pression of mockery about its lips. And, when he had gone 
a few yards farther, he looked back ; but the figure was not 
there. 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS lbo 

And a sudden horror came over Schwartz, he knew not why; 
but the thirst for gold prevailed over his fear, and he rushed on. 
And the bank of black cloud rose to the zenith, and out of it 
came bursts of spiry lightning, and waves of darkness seemed to 
heave and float between their flashes, over the whole heavens. 
And the sky where the sun was setting was all level, and like a 
lake of blood ; and a strong wind came out of that sky, tearing 
its crimson clouds into fragments, and scattering them far into 
the darkness. And when Schwartz stood by the brink of the 
Golden River, its waves were black, like thunder clouds, but 
their foam was like fire ; and the roar of the w r aters below, and 
the thunder above met, as he cast the flask into the stream. 
And, as he did so, the lightning glared in his eyes, and the 
earth gave way beneath him, and the waters closed over his cry. 
And the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night, as it 
gushed over the 

Two Black Stones. 



154 THE KING OF THE GOLDEX RIVER 



CHAPTER V 

HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF OX AN EXPEDITION TO THE 
GOLDEX RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN'; WITH 
OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST 

"When Gluck found that Schwartz did not come back, he 
was very sorry, and did not know what to do. He had no 
money, and was obliged to go and hire himself again to the 
goldsmith, who worked him very hard, and gave him very 
little money. So, after a month or two, Gluck grew tired, 
and made up his mind to go and try his fortune with the 
Golden River. "The little king looked very kind," thought 
he. "I don't think he will turn me into a black stone." So 
he went to the priest, and the priest gave him some holy 
water ° as soon as he asked for it. Then Gluck took some 
bread in his basket, and the bottle of water, and set otf very 
early for the mouutains. 

If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue to his 
brothers, it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither 
so strong nor so practised on the mountains. He had several 
very bad falls, lost his basket and bread, and was very much 
frightened at the strange noises under the ice. He lay a long 
time to rest on the grass, after he had got over, and began to 
climb the hill just in the hottest part of the day. When he 
had climbed for an hour, he got dreadfully thirsty, and was 
going to drink like his brothers, when he saw an old man com- 
ing down the path above him, looking very feeble, and leaning 
on a staff. "My son," said the old man, "I am faint with 



OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS 155 

thirst, give me some of that water." Then Gluck looked at 
him, and when he saw that he was pale and weary, he 
gave him the water; "Only pray don't drink it all," said 
Gluck. But the old man drank a great deal, and gave him 
back the bottle two-thirds empty. Then he bade him good 
speed, and Gluck went on again merrily. And the path became 
easier to his feet, and two or three blades of grass appeared 
upon it, and some grasshoppers began singing on the bank 
beside it ; and Gluck thought he had never heard such merry 
singing. 

Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased 
on him so that he thought he should be forced to drink. But, 
as he raised the flask, he saw a little child lying panting by the 
roadside, -and it cried out piteously for water. Then Gluck 
struggled with himself, and determined to bear the thirst a 
little longer ; and he put the bottle to the child's lips, and it 
drank it all but a few drops. Then it smiled on him, and got 
up, and ran down the hill ; and Gluck looked after it, till it 
became as small as a little star, and then turned and began 
climbing again. And then there were all kinds of sweet 
flowers growing on the rocks, bright green moss, with pale pink 
starry flowers, and soft belled gentians, more blue thau the sky 
at its deepest, and pure white transparent lilies. And crimson 
and purple butterflies darted hither and thither, and the sky 
sent down such pure light, that Gluck had never felt so happy 
in his life. 

Yet, when he had climbed for another hour, his thirst became 
intolerable again ; and, when he looked at his bottle, he saw 
that there were only five or six drops left in it, and he could 
not venture to drink. And, as he was hanging the flask to his 
belt again, he saw a little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for 
breath — just as Hans had seen it on the day of his ascent. 
And Gluck stopped and looked at it, and then at the Golden 
River, not five hundred yards above him ; and he thought of 



156 THE KING OF THE GOLDEN BIVER ; 

the dwarfs words, " that no one could succeed, except in his 
first attempt ; " and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined 
piteously, and Gluck stopped again. " Poor beastie," said 
Gluck, "it'll be dead when I come down again, if I don't help 
it." Then he looked closer and closer at it, and its eye turned 
on him so mournfully that he could not stand it. " Confound 
the King, and his gold too," said Gluck ; and he opened the 
flask, and poured all the water into the dog's mouth. 

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail 
disappeared, its ears become long, longer, silky, golden ; 
its nose became very red, its eyes became very twinkling ; in 
three seconds the dog was gone, and before Gluck stood his old 
acquaintance, the King of the Golden River. 

" Thank you," said the monarch ; " but don't be frightened, 
it's all right ; " for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of con- 
sternation at this unlooked-for reply to his last observation. 
" Why didn't you come before," continued the dwarf, " instead of 
sending me those rascally brothers of yours, for me to have the 
trouble of turning into stones ? Very hard stones they make 
too." 

"Oh, dear me ! " said Gluck, " have you really been so 
cruel ? " 

" Cruel ! " said the dwarf, " they poured unholy water into 
my stream : do you suppose I'm going to allow that ? " 

"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir — your Majesty, I 
mean — they got the water out of the church-font." 

"Very probably," replied the dwarf; "but," and his coun- 
tenance grew stern as he spoke, " the water which has been 
refused ° to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though 
it had been blessed by every saint in heaven ; and the water 
which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had 
been defiled with corpses." 

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at 
his feet. On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear 



157 

dew. And the dwarf shook them into the flask which Gluck 
held in his hand. "Cast these into the river," he said, "and 
descend on the other side of the mountains into the Treasure 
Valley. And so good speed." 

As he spoke, the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The 
playing colors of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic 
mist of dewy light : he stood for an instant veiled with them as 
with the belt of a broad rainbow. The colors grew faint, the 
mist rose into the air ; the monarch had evaporated. 

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and 
its waves were as clear as crystal, and as brilliant as the sun. 
And, when he cast the three drops of dew into the stream, there 
opened where they fell, a small circular whirlpool, into which 
the waters descended with a musical noise. 

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disap- 
pointed, because not only the river was not turned into gold, 
but its waters seemed much diminished in quantity. Yet he 
obeyed his friend the dwarf, and descended the other side of 
the mountains, towards the Treasure Valley ; and, as he went, 
he thought he heard the noise of water working its way under 
the ground. And, when he came in sight of the Treasure 
Valley, behold, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from 
a new cleft of the rocks above it, and was flowing in innumera- 
ble streams among the dry heaps of red sand. 

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new 
streams, and creeping plants grew, and climbed among the 
moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the 
river-sides, as stars leap out when twilight is deepening, and 
thickets of myrtle, and tendrils of vine, cast lengthening 
shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the Treasure 
Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance, which had 
been lost by cruelty, was regained by love. • 

And Gluck went, and dwelt in the valley, and the poor 
were never driven from his door: so that his barns became 



158 THE KIXG OF THE GOLDEN RIVER 

full of corn, and his house of treasure. And, for him, the river 
had, according to the dwarfs promise, become a River of Gold. 
And,, to this day, the inhabitants of the valley point out the 
place where the three drops of holy dew were cast into the stream, 
and trace the course of the Golden River under the ground, 
until it emerges in the Treasure Valley. And at the top of 
the cataract of the Golden River, are still to be seen two 
black stones, round which the waters howl mournfully every 
day at sunset ; and these stones are still called by the people 
of the valley 

The Black Brothers. 



NOTES TO SESAME AND LILIES 

PREFACE OF 1882 

This preface was prefixed to an edition containing only the first 
two lectures. 

Page i., § 1. The irrelevant Preface. The original preface on 
Alpine climbing, suggested by the disaster on the Matterhorn (see 
note on p. 187). This and the " gossiping introduction " are both, 
observe, sternly cut out, Ruskin, from the vantage-point of com- 
parative old age, seeing their fault clearly, yet very characteristi- 
cally unable to prevent himself from indulging in several pages 
of comment hardly less "gossiping" and "irrelevant." . What he 
does not apparently realize is that he is read mainly for what he 
says, without any regard to its relevancy to anything in especial. 
See Introduction, p. xxiii. 

Good books, good women. Treated, respectively, in Lectures I. 
and II. 

§ 2. Pet. Ill temper. 

P. ii., § 2. Orpheus, Camilla. Noted, one for music, the other 
for graceful swiftness. See Classical Dictionary. 

§ 3. Untried instruments. Bicycle and steam whistle. 

Out-of-college education. University extension or, perhaps, 
merely a reference to unattached students, sharing privileges with- 
out membership in one of the colleges. 

Positivism. A religion based, not on revelation, but on love of 
humanity. Le Comte (1798-1857) was the founder of the system. 

Negativism. Not the name of any distinct school, perhaps applied 
here to agnosticism, with its belief in the impossibility of certain 

159 



160 XOTES [page ii 

knowledge of ultimate truth. (Yet Ruskin, in the third lecture, 
conies rather near agnostic doctrine ) 

Realistic, materialistic. Inclined to esteem the real and material 
above the ideal and spiritual. 

Dissolutely. Apparently in its derivative signification, — without 
regard to bonds, dissolvingly. in endeavor to overturn and break 
up all. 

P. in., § 4. Mammoth and Dodo. Extinct creatures, — the first. 
a species of elephant, the second, a bird. 

§ 7. Monthly parcels. See note on library, on p. 205. 

PBEFACE OF 1871 

P. v., § i. Truism. Truth so obvious as to make statement 
unnecessary. 

Affected language. See Introduction, pp. xxiv to xxvii. 

P. vi. , § i. Modern Painters. See Introduction, p. xxxi. 

Richard Hooker (15-54-1600). An early theological writer. 
His chief work is his Laics of Ecclesiastical Polity, upholding the 
government of the Church of England. His style is somewhat 
involved and inclined to long sentences. 

§ in. Into the language of books. One cannot read the lectures 
that follow without being struck by their oral character. This is 
one consideration that makes it especially desirable that they be 
read aloud. 

P. vii., § iv. The first lecture says. It is rather characteristic 
that Ruskin. setting out to define sharply what he has said, or 
meant to say, goes branching off upon the matter of honest bind- 
ing. See Introduction, p. xxiii. 

P. viii.. § vi. The entire gist and conclusion. Such a direction 
from the author himself is worth heeding. In these paragraphs 
one will find stated Ruskin's ideal of man's work in the world. 
See how far it is your own. 



page xvj NOTES 161 

The famine of Orissa. Orissa, an ancient kingdom of India, 
now forms the southwestern district of Bengal. 

P. ix., § vii. You have not been singled out. Compare the treat- 
ment of this subject in Lecture I., §§ 25-26, Lecture II., § 73, and 
Lecture III., § 140. It is a topic on which Ruskin held strong 
opinions. 

Luminous. Blessed with light. 

Immaculate and final verity. Spotless and conclusive truth. 

P. x., § vii. The most abstruse of all possible subjects. Theology, 

§ vin. u Work while you have light. ' ' A variation, probably, of 
John ix. 4, " I must work . . . while it is day : the night cometh, 
when no man can work." 

Be merciful, etc. Compare Matthew v. 7. " Blessed are the 
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." 

The light of morning. Of the morning of life. 

P. xi., § vin. Solennis. Literally annual; then, established, as 
a regular custom. Ruskin would remind us that repeated deeds 
establish habit. The turn by which he reaches this subject 
through the double use of the word "solemn" is characteristic, 
paralleling Lecture I., § 42, and Lecture II., § 95, as well as 
other passages. 

Two mirrors. The physical and the mental. Inspect the dress, 
that is, of mind as well as of body. 

Smooth-braided. Have your mind " smoothed down." 

P. xii., § ix. A clear-voiced little instrument . . . which other 
people can depend upon. Typical advice. It is what we find 
Ruskin advising of every activity in life, — sincerity, accuracy, 
honesty, devotion to the good of others. 

Vulgar. Here in the sense of useful. 

P. xiv., § x. Proverbs xxxi. In which, 10-31, is described the 
virtuous woman, whose price is above rubies. 

P. xv., § xi. Gates of Pearl. The gates of heaven. See the 
description in Revelation xxi. 21. 

M 



162 NOTES [page xvi 

P. xvi., § xii. Neither need you expect. Compare Emerson, 
Compensation. 

§ xiii. Lord, I thank thee, etc. See the prayer of the Pharisee, 
Luke xviii. 11 and 12, "The Pharisee stood and prayed thus 
with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, 
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican : I fast 
twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess." A very 
ironical imitation of the same mood is found in Burns's poem, 
" Holy Willie's Prayer." 

P. xvii., § xiii. Which clergymen so much dislike preaching 
on. Why ? What does-Ruskin imply ? 

How hardly, etc. Mark x. 23. 

Joy in a jest, etc. Hardly in accord with the grim ideal of the 
Puritan. 

P. xviii., § xv. Menageres. Housekeepers. Monde and demi- 
monde, respectable and disreputable society. Premieres repre- 
sentations, first views (of exhibits of paintings, etc.). Mobiliers, 
furniture. Vaudevilles, light comedies, not, as the word denotes 
in English, variety shows. Anonymas, persons whose names one 
doesn't care to mention. 

P. xix., § xv. Emeutes. Outbreaks. For a lively definition 
of the emeute as opposed to other varieties of uprising, see Victor 
Hugo's Les Miser aides. 

Vous etes, etc. " You are an English woman, we believe you ; 
English women always tell the truth." 

Sic (Latin for thus). It calls attention to some peculiarity', 
generally some error, in the words quoted. Here " pretty " should, 
in strict grammar, be "prettily." "Better," perhaps, in that it 
expresses, though at the expense of grammar, the main thought, — 
that the houses are made "pretty." 

P. xx., § xvi. Ellesmere. Probably Francis Egerton, Earl of 
Ellesmere (1800-1857). The reference to the intervention and 
Gretchen is obscure. Ellesmere had published, in 1823 (Warren's 



page xxi] NOTES 163 

notes), a translation of Goethe's Faust, in which Margaret, con- 
traction to " Gretchen," is the heroine. But this accounts for 
nothing in Ruskin's statement. 

$l\r\, phile. The Greek adjective for dear, or friendly. Here 
in the feminine form. The masculine would be <pL\os, philos. 
(Found in combination in philosopher, lover of wisdom, Philadel- 
phia, brotherly love.) 

P. xxi., § xvii. Greek and Syrian tragedy. In which women 
appear in vengeful roles, and as perpetrators of violent crimes. 
Medea is an example from Greece, as would be also Clytemnestra. 
In Syrian tragedy (Ruskin seems to be referring to the Old Testa- 
ment), we have Herodias, below, and such other evil characters 
as Jezebel, Delilah, etc. 

As dutiful as Medea. As the daughter of Herodias. Ironical. 
Medea showed her dutifulness to her children by murdering them 
to punish her husband for his desertion of her. The daughter of 
Herodias was " dutiful," in a way, by carrying out faithfully her 
mother's evil commands. She danced as bidden before King 
Herod, gained his sworn promise to give her whatever she might 
ask, and then asked for the head of John the Baptist, whom he 
esteemed, but whom Herodias hated. See Matthew xiv. 1-11. 

§ xvi 1 1. Not an unjust person,. etc. A description of Ruskin as 
he saw himself. Is his opinion true ? He may have been, at times, 
unintentionally unjust, unknowingly unkind. He had, no one 
who knows his work can fail to perceive, a deep desire for both 
[ justice and kindliness. The three good things that he loves, order, 
labor, and peace, are typical of the tendency of his whole teaching. 

Guido Guinicelli. An early Italian poet of Bologna. Dante 
speaks of him in his Purgatory, in Canto xi., where he speaks of 
one Guido (Cavalcanti) snatching the prize of letters from the 
other (Guinicelli), and in Canto xxvi., where Guinicelli himself 
is introduced, suffering his purgation of earthly sin. In Dante 
Gabriel Rossetti's Dante and his Circle will be found transla- 



164 NOTES [page xxi 

tions from his poems. See also Cary's notes to the Purgatory, 
Canto xi. His work is marked by a high, pure idealism, and a 
deep sense of the refining power of womanly love. It is in this 
tenderness, this adoration of pure beauty, this directing idealism, 
that Ruskin resembles him. 

Marmontel. A French writer and reformer (1723-1799). 
Approximately contemporary with Rousseau and Voltaire. Like 
Rousseau he is distinguished for his love for nature, and affection- 
ate observation of beauty in nature. Like Rousseau he suggested 
reforms in education, and urged the value of spiritual development 
as opposed to worldly success. In these respects, and in his tolera- 
tion of religious opinion, his views of society, his desire for minute 
faithful accuracy in all study, he has also much in common with 
Ruskin. 

P. xxii. , § xvii. Dean Swift. The '* great and terrible ' ' Jonathan 
Swift (1667-1745). He is chiefly known as a satirist. His great- 
est work of satire is his Gulliver's Travels — which very young 
readers read without the least suspicion that it is anything more 
than a pleasant fairy story. In reality, it is an attack on the pride 
of mankind. To a larger being, the author points out, all that we 
regard as great would appear minute and trivial, our royal state- 
liness mere strutting of dwarfs. To a minute being, our refinement 
would appear ridiculous, every detail of our life being revolting. 
To beings of another species — the idealized horse, for example — 
the very idea of humanity would be loathsome. Ruskin means, 
evidently, in stating the resemblance, — one not very easily per- 
ceived, — that he is forced by the meannesses and hypocrisies of the 
world into a bitterness of spirit akin to that of Swift. Observe, 
however, in these essays, that while Ruskin's attacks on shams 
are violent, are in a way bitter, they have always a basis of kind- 
liness. His hate is, as Carlyle puts it, u an inverted love" spring- 
ing from a desire to see things better. He is not without hope and 
endeavor. Swift, on the other hand, seems to have given mankind 



page 1] NOTES 165 

up for lost, and to be railing, bitterly and hopelessly, at their vain 
ideals and empty pretences. Swift depresses, Ruskin inspires. 
Swift leaves you feeling that there is nothing to be done ; Ruskin, 
that there is everything to do. 

SESAME 
OF KINGS' TREASURIES 

This lecture "Of Kings' Treasuries," was given December 6, 
1864, at Rusholme Town Hall, Manchester, in aid of a library fund 
for the Rusholme Institute. The second was given a little over a 
week later, December 14, at the Town Hall, King Street, Manches- 
ter, now the Free Reference Library, in aid of schools for Ancoats. 
The third was delivered almost four years later, in the Theatre of 
the Royal College of Science, Dublin. This last was not, then, 
originally closely associated with the other two, which were inten- 
tionally linked, one supplementing the other. These are to be 
regarded consequently almost as a unit and studied with their rela- 
tionship in mind. The year in which the first two were written was 
important in Ruskin's life. It was the year of his father's death, 
an event that led to his passing much time in the stately house at 
Richmond Hill, amid its seven acres of ground. Here he had lived 
in the company of his mother and of his cousin, Miss Joanna Ruskin 
Agnew, afterward Mrs. Severn, who remained his close and devoted 
friend to his death. Perhaps, one of his biographers suggests, 
these two may have turned his thoughts toward questions of 
woman's work and influence. 

The first lecture, aimed to aid a library, discusses the worth of 
books. The second, in aid of a school, discusses the ideal education 
of women. The first resembles, in some respects, some other essays 
that should be read. There is Lowell's Books and Libraries and 
Emerson's Books, the latter being especially similar to parts of 



166 NOTES [page; l 

this in both spirit and substance. The student will find it interest- 
ing to compare the thoughts of the three writers upon this subject. 

The first two lectures were first published in 1865. In 1869, in 
the tenth edition, was added The Mystery of. Life. This was 
withdrawn again in the edition of 1882, though editions since 
show that a demand necessitated its reinsertion. There have been 
material changes in the text, mainly in the direction of cutting out 
sentences which, though well enough suited for offhand delivery, 
yet lacked the dignity expected in written form. 

The motto is from Lucian, a Greek writer of the second century 
a.d. His writings consist in great part of dialogues, mostly satirical, 
inclined to attacks upon religion. The extract cited has no refer- 
ence to the subject of the lecture beyond its use of the keyword 
Sesame. 

P. 3, § 1. Sesame. The best explanation of this, as Ruskin 
uses it, is found in his own words on p. 49, "bread made of that 
old enchanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors ; — 
doors, not of robbers', but of Kings' Treasuries. " For the reference 
to Arabian story, see the note, p. 194. The sesame is used 
figuratively here for the magic grain of education, the grain that 
opens the doors of the treasuries of wisdom (see p. 195 for Lilies). 
As for the treasuries, Ruskin perhaps has in mind Ezra v. 17, 
" Let there be search made in the king's treasure house." 

One observes, at the outset, a marked wordiness. The opening 
paragraph is diffuse. Why may this, ordinarily a defect, be almost 
a merit under the circumstances that governed this lecture ? Con- 
sider the effect upon the hearers, the mood that the lecturer aimed 
to establish, the kind of advice that was to follow. 

Not ... of kings, known as regnant. Of what kind of kings is 
he, then, going to talk ? See paragraph 42, pp. 44-45, and the first 
paragraph of Lecture II. The kingship he means is the " power 
over the ill-guided and illiterate," a power springing from "well- 
directed moral training and well-chosen reading." 



page5] NOTES 167 

To hide what I wanted most to show. This is rather charac- 
teristic of Ruskin. His titles seldom, if ever, give much clew to the 
subject. 

I will take the slight mask off. Does he take it off entirely? 
We are still left rather uncertain as to the exact nature of the 
kings. A sharper definition here would have helped the reader. 

P. 4, § 1. The compass. The whole circuit, all that it en- 
compasses. 

Irrigation of literature. Observe how this figure accords with 
the word u levels." 

§2. Some connection with schools, etc. Ruskin taught for 
years in the Workingman's College and took more or less active 
interest in the work for a long time after. His father's position at 
the head of various charities had left him in responsible relations to 
several institutions, among them Christ's Hospital and the Blue- 
coat School (see Charles Lamb's BecoUections of Christ's Hos- 
pital'). Ruskin's connection with the Oxford classes came some 
years later. 

Letters. One of these is quoted in Time and Tide, Letter xx. 

Double-belled doors, one bell for visitors, one for " inferiors." 

An education. The keynote of the essay, which advocates cul- 
ture for development, not for material ends. 

Advancement in life. See p. xl on the plan and construction 
of this lecture. This is the first step in the logical progress of 
the argument. Observe how clearly the author's intention is an- 
nounced. 

Advancement in death, in spiritual death. Does Ruskin refer 
to sin or to mere failure to live, in the highest sense of the word? 

P. 5, § 3. " The last infirmity." Milton, Lycidas, 1. 71. 

" Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days." 



168 NOTES [page 5 

Ruskin writes minds for Milton's mind, but the misquotation has 
become, in popular use, almost the accepted form. 

As its greatest catastrophes. What are some examples ? 

§ 4. Mortal. Literally deadly, from the Latin mortalis, for 
mors, death. Mortification, used figuratively for shame and 
humiliation, is here used in its derivative meaning of gangrenous 
corruption. 

Effect . . . upon health and energy. There are certainly many 
cases where men have sickened or have even died of shame. 

The captain, etc. How far is this true ? Examine your own 
ambitions. Are they wholly free from selfish hopes ? 

P. 6, § 4. My Lord. Bishops of the Church of England are 
peers of the realm and members of the House of Lords. 

§ 5. Not that we may have it. The right longing for good 
society, that is for ennobling fellowship, is not condemned. 

The motives . . . too low. There is a peculiar condescension 
of manner in the following passage, as if the speaker were talking 
to children. This taking so little for granted, either in moral 
standard or intellect, has at times an effect rather ironical. He is 
less anxious to find out what they think than to make them 
ashamed, secretly, of what they do think. 

My writings on Political Economy. Unto this Last and Munera 
Pulveris. See Introduction, p. xxxiv. Fors Clavigera, etc., were 
of later date than this lecture. 

What used to be called virtue. Implying that this has gone out 
of fashion. 

" Not in human nature." The objection most commonly raised 
now to the theories of Ruskin and other reformers. In his insist- 
ence that political economy failed to take into account the humane, 
disinterested motives in human action lies the chief object of all his 
attacks on the science. Read his works and see what conclusion 
you reach. The objection referred to has been raised against all 
social reformers from Plato to Morris and Bellamy. 



page 10] NOTES 169 

P. 7, § 5, Hold up their hands. This is a good place for the 
reader — in secret — to cast his own vote. 

In this paragraph there is a slight shifting of ground. The main 
idea is, we should choose wise and noble friends. The desire to 
be praised and the desire to do one's duty are, however, made dis- 
proportionately prominent. One knows that the writer was aiming 
at this idea of companionship, and one sees that it is associated 
with the ideas that precede it, but one cannot help feeling that the 
connection is not made along clearly defined lines. For discussion 
of similar cases, see Introduction, pp. xxiii-xxiv and xl seq. 

P. 8, § 6. Princess and queen. What kind of benefit (for 
there is benefit) is derived from the sight of these ? How far is 
it in the person, how far in the human ideals they represent ? 
Would Emerson or Lowell have included them in a similar list? 
Compare with this whole passage the third paragraph of Emerson's 
essay on Books. 

§ 7. Folded in two. Fanciful, almost fantastic, elaborating rather 
than explaining. Ruskin seems to be playing a game, trivial but 
charming, with his rather perplexed hearers. Yet, for all this intri- 
cate adornment, one feels not the slightest doubt of his sincerity. 

P. 9, § 7. Privy Council. As a king summons a privy coun- 
cil of the wisest of his people to advise him, you summon a council 
of the wisest of all time, to ccunsel you in your narrower kingship. 

§ 8. Ephemeral. Literally, for the day, of the day, passing 
away with it. 

The books of the hour. You can easily think of several instances. 

P. 10, § 9. The newspaper may be proper. Compare Emerson 
in Boohs, " If you should transfer the amount of your reading 
day by day from the newspaper to the standard authors — But 
who dare speak of such a thing ? " and " Never read a book that is 
not a year old." 



170 NOTES [page 10 

Though bound up in a volume. The Voyage of the Yacht Sun- 
beam, for example. 

That is a "book." It is perhaps worth one's while to reflect 
how many books really worthy of the title one has read during the 
year. 

P. 11, § 10. That bit is his book, or his piece of art. In apply- 
ing the terms to works other than printed books, Ruskin, while 
pointing a valuable moral, is departing from his immediate subject. 
The suggestion is inspiring, but not in place here. He is anticipat- 
ing what he says in Lecture III. The footnote, by Ruskin, directs 
the reader to compare this with Queen of the Air, § 106. In 
this section he maintains that the " foundation of art is in moral 
character," and that " great art is the expression, by an art-gift, of 
a pure soul." 

§ 11. Housemaid or stable-boy. Have you not read, in a news- 
paper or in light fiction, writing that imparts no more than such 
gossip ? The reporters too often chronicle mere servant gossip of 
the dress and doings of rich people, or stable-boy gossip of their 
new carriages and swift and costly horses. 

With queens and kings. Note that the contrast between queen 
and housemaid is meant to represent not mere social station, 
but, symbolically, far more. In actual life, some housemaids may 
excel some queens. In type, in theory at least, the queen has 
higher ideals, wider culture, prof bunder wisdom. The kings and 
queens thought of here are kings and queens worthy of their state 
and responsibility. 

Entree. Right of entrance. 

Your own inherent aristocracy. Aristocracy means by deriva- 
tion "rule of the best" (a/no-ros, aristos, best, and KpaTetv, kratein, 
be strong, or govern). Too often now by the "best" we mean 
those possessed of the most money, or descended from the " oldest 
family." Such aristocracy as Ruskin speaks of here is the true 
preeminence of those that are really the best, whose excellence is 



page 14] NOTES 111 

inherent, rooted, in themselves. Lack of money or of wealth can- 
not deprive one of such fitness, nor can the possession of these 
obtain it. 

P. 12, § 12. Those Elysian gates. The gates of those Elysian 
fields where, according to ancient belief,- the souls of the virtuous 
dead lived in bliss after death, — the gates, then, that admit one 
into companionship with the great and wise of past time. 

Portidres. Gates. 

Faubourg St. Germain. Once a suburb, the aristocratic district 
of Paris. Why silent ? Would the real Faubourg be marked by 
silence ? 

§ 13. This, then, is what you have to do. Here is taken up a 
new section of the subject. Granted that we desired to enter this 
fellowship, how shall we become worthy of it and attain admission ? 
Ruskin here outlines his plan. There are two ways of showing 
true love of great writers, (a) 'By a true desire to enter into 
their thoughts, (b) [See § 27.] By endeavor to enter into their 
hearts, (a) deals mainly with the intellect, how to understand 
their message ; (6) mainly with the sympathies, how to fit one's 
self to feel it. 

P. 13, § 13. Reticence. Be sure that you get the meaning 
and derivation of this word. 

P. 14, § 15. Syllable by syllable, letter by letter. Newspaper 
and light novel are getting people out of this habit of thoroughness. 
It is well, in reading this essay, for instance, to discipline one's self 
by a deliberate application. 

Literature. Derived from the Latin word liter atus, skilled in 
letters, derived in turn from litera, a letter. 

British Museum. Containing, besides vast art collections, the 
famous Reading Room, a circular apartment one hundred and forty 
feet in diameter, and one hundred and six feet high. The total 
number of printed books is estimated at almost two million. Obvi- 
ously Ruskin's supposition is a large one. 



172 NOTES [page 14 

Whatever language he knows, he knows precisely. Ruskin, in 
all his writings as in his life, is an advocate of scrupulous accuracy 
in work of whatever kind one may undertake. Observe other in- 
stances in these lectures. 

The peerage of words. Compared, by implication, to the peer- 
age of persons, that is, their relative rank, as determined by ancestry. 
Observe in what it differs from " pedigree," which denotes rather 
the line of descent itself. 

Canaille. The French term for the vulgar multitude, the " great 
unwashed." 

Noblesse. Nobility of rank. 

An ordinarily clever . . . seaman, etc., will be known for . . . 
illiterate. Because the language that he knows, he knows far 
from precisely, and pronounces words quite regardless of the 
proper pronunciation. 

P. 15, § 15. A false accent or a mistaken syllable. There are 
many cases where a speaker in the English Parliament has been 
humiliated on account of some slight error in a Latin quotation. In 
the present day, members of Parliament are less distinguished by 
Latinity. In our own Congress, quotations in Latin are unlikely, 
and serious mispronunciations might very possibly be perpetrated 
without detection. 

§ 16. Section 16 diverges from the subject. Ruskin is telling 
us how to study w T ords in reading the works of great writers. Here 
he takes up the meaning of words in quite other relations. Observe 
the hit at information as opposed to true education. See Dickens's 
Hard Times for another attack on the teaching of mere " facts." 

Masked words. Words with two faces. 

Wear chameleon cloaks. The chameleon is a creature that 
changes color according to the tint of the surface upon which it lies. 
The word is derived from the Greek words x a M«^ chamai, = on the 
ground; and \£uv, leon, = lion. Hence Ruskin 's " ground-lion." 
The word seems also, however, explicable as dwarf-lion, x a f JL0L ^ 



page 17] NOTES 173 

often having this signification in combination. The idea of " lion M 
is developed in the later figure of u rend him." 

Unjust stewards. Luke xvi. 1-8, though the reference is hardly- 
more than verbal. 

§ 17. So mongrel in breed. The student will do well to look up 
the history of the origin of the English language. R. C. Trench's 
English Past and Present, while perhaps not strictly modern, is a 
most readable and suggestive history of our tongue. Very goo$ 
books also are those of Sweet, Skeat, Emerson, and Lounsbury. 

P. 16, § 17. By which the heavens. 2 Peter iii. 5-7. 

Cannot be made a present ... in morocco binding. Ruskin 
wishes to distinguish between the word of God, his sacred revela- 
tion and speech to man, and the mere material book, the volume in 
which some part of that speech and revelation finds utterance. 

Sown on any wayside. A reference to the Parable of the Sower, 
Matthew xiii. 4, 7. The seed sown by the wayside is devoured by 
the birds. That sown among thorns is choked. " Steam plough M 
carries out the figure of sowing; "steam press" applies it to the 
actual conditions. 

P. 17, § 18. "Damno," and condemn. These are derived from 
one source, condemn being from the Latin condemnare, which is 
simply damnarc strengthened by the prefix eon, altogether. Deriv- 
atively, then, condemn should be the more vigorous word ; damn, 
the weaker form. But the ways of language are not governed by 
logic. 

Divisions in the mind of Europe. The great religious wars in 
European history. These were rendered possible, according to 
Ruskin, by the restricting in meaning of the word ecclesia (as seen in 
our English ecclesiastic) to denote the church as an organization. 
The word ecclesia meant, in Greek, merely a public assembly, but, 
through being applied to the gathering of all the members of the 
church, reached very naturally its later sense. Priest and presbyter 
(terms over whose relative merit much Scotch and English blood 



174 NOTES [page 17 

has been shed) are virtually the same word, though priest, a form 
occurring far back in the history of our tongue (Saxon preost) 
is "vulgar" only as "common." Milton, in his sonnet on New 
Forms of Conscience, writes, " New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ 
large." Yet does this resemblance in derivation mean that there 
was no real difference in signification ? Would priest and presbyter 
have agreed in doctrine, even had they agreed on one name ? 

§ 19. Greek first, etc. Trace out the history of the words in 
an etymological dictionary. An example would be the Greek 
wpo(pr}Tr)s (prophetes) , Latin propheta, Old French prophete, English 
prophet. 

Max Miiller. A philologian, of German descent, professor of 
Sanscrit at Oxford. He wrote many noted works on philology, etc. 

P. 18, § 19. It takes a whole life to learn, etc. Not as one 
usually learns a foreign tongue, — Euskin speaks of a knowledge 
so perfect that one feels its finest shades as keenly as they may be 
felt. Do you in this sense as yet "know" the English language ? 

§ 20. Lycidas. Milton's famous elegy on his friend Ed- 
ward King, who perished while crossing the Irish Channel. The 
student will do well to review the whole poem. The name Lycidas 
is taken from that of a shepherd in Virgil's Eclogues. In the pas- 
sage selected by Ruskin, lines 108-129, St. Peter, last of the 
imagined mourning train, bewails the young man, and through his 
mouth Milton utters this mighty denunciation of the corruption 
that he sees at work in God's temples. 

In the extract from Milton, the following notes may be of help : 
Pilot of the Galilean lake, St. Peter, who owned a fishing-boat 
upon the sea of Galilee. Twain = two. Mitred = covered by 
the mitre, the hat of the bishop. Bespake = addressed him.. 
Swain = shepherd or farmer. Enow = enough. Fold = sheep- 
fold. Shove, not trivial, as now. What recks it = what does it 
matter to? we should now say, "what do they reck (care)?" 
Are sped = have prospered (are in the condition of having pros- 



page 20] NOTES 175 

pered). List, like. Lean and flashy, showy and unsatisfying. 
Songs is pastorally figurative for sermons, etc. Grate = sound 
harsh. Scrannel =s thin, eager. Pipes = pipes cut from oat 
or reed, a shepherd's instrument. Drew — drew in with their 
breath. Wolf, Milton, the Protestant, so designates the Church of 
Rome. Privy = secret, unnoted. Apace = swiftly. And nothing 
said — no voice is raised in protest. 

The clergy are spoken of throughout as shepherds, a figure in har- 
mony with the pastoral character of the poem. It fits, besides, the 
idea of the pastoral duties of the clergy, their care of spiritual flocks. 

P. 19, § 20. Episcopal function. Performance of the duties 
of bishop. Bishop and episcopal are from one source. Drop the 
e and al and you will see this. Both are from the Greek word 
iirLcrKOTros = episcopos, a bishop or, literally, an overseer (£ttL = epi = 
upon, <tkott6s = skojws = one that watches). 

No bishop-lover. Milton is frequently spoken of as the Puritan 
poet. What was the attitude of the Puritans toward bishops? 
Why might Milton be expected to be unwilling to recognize Peter 
as the mitred head of the church ? See Macaulay's Essay on 
Milton. 

The power . . . claimed. Fully to understand this passage one 
must have looked into the exact nature of one of the doctrines of 
the Roman church, — that the Bishop, the Pope of Rome, is, as 
spiritually descended from St. Peter, made preeminent in power 
over all other bishops, and that what he binds or looses on earth is 
" bound or loosed in heaven." That text. See Matthew xvi. 17-19. 

P. 20, § 21. Lords over . . . flock. 1 Peter v. 3. 

With Peter's denunciation here, one may well compare that 
which he is represented as uttering in Dante's Paradise, Canto 
xxvii. 

11 In shepherd's clothing, greedy wolves below 
Range wide o'er all the pastures. Arm of God! 
Why longer sleepest thou ? " 



176 tfOTES [page 20 

P. 20, § 22. A broken metaphor. A metaphor not in harmony 
with itself, inconsistent. Mouths, which can never see, might seem 
unfittingly described as "deprived of sight." Mixed metaphor is 
another term applied to such inconsistent constructions. 

A ''bishop'' means. The short paragraphs give the clear-cut 
logical progress that one finds in a mathematical demonstration. 
Each step is made distinct. 

Pastor. A shepherd; literally, one who feeds (his flock). The 
derivation of bishop has been given above. 

P. 21, § 22. Power rather than light. Watch carefully the 
distinction made. In what does the bishop's office, his function, 
differ from the king's ? 

Does the bishop know ? It does not follow that he ought, in a 
vast diocese, to watch personally all the dealings of each individual 
Bill and Nancy. Presumably he might, as overseer, use other eyes 
in his service. 

In the letter referred to, in Time and Tide, Ruskin reiterates, 
more emphatically, what he says here, — that it is a bishop's busi- 
ness to watch over his flock, body and soul. 

As high as Salisbury steeple. The steeple of Salisbury cathe- 
dral, the loftiest in Great Britain. It is as if we said, in America, 
"as high as the Washington Monument." 

At the helm. Who should properly be there ? 

P. 22, § 23. Only a contraction ; from Latin spiritns, breath. 
The Greek word referred to is wed^a, pneuma, breath or wind. 
Compare the familiar word pneumatic. The wind bloweth. Both 
extracts are from one sentence. John iii. 8, "The wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not 
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is 
born of the Spirit." Ruskin would point out that in the original 
the words wind and Spirit are the same, though translated differ- 
ently. (The Revised Version suggests as an alternative reading 
"The Spirit breatheth where," etc.) 



page 23] NOTES 111 

That "puffing up." Ruskin had an almost intolerant distaste 
for religious intolerance and sectarian conceit. He had been 
brought up in rather narrow beliefs, from which he resolutely 
stepped out, recognizing that all sincere worships of men had in 
them something of the divine. This lecture was written while he 
was strongly under the impulse of this new perception. See the 
discussion of this point in the Introduction, p. xxxvi. Compare 
also the second lecture, § 73. 

Cretinous. Cretinism is a form of idiocy, combined with deform- 
ity, common in the Alpine region. 

High church or low. Referring to the divisions of the Church 
of England. 

P. 23, § 23. Clouds without water. From the description of 
false teachers in Jude xii. 

§ 24. Dante. The great Florentine poet (1265-1321). His 
greatest work is the Divine Comedy (Commedia, since not 
tragedy), his vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. It stands 
among the very greatest of poems. There are excellent transla- 
tions in verse by H. F. Cary and H. W. Longfellow, and a prose 
version by C. E. Norton. 

He supposes both the keys. A reference to Purgatorio, Canto 
ix. 

" I could descry 
A portal, and three steps beneath, that led 
For inlet there, of different color each. . . . 

The lowest stair was marble white, so smooth 
And polished, that therein my mirrored form 
Distinct I saw. The next of hue more dark 
Than sablest grain, a rough and singed block, 
Cracked lengthwise and across. The third that lay 
Massy above, seemed porphyry, that flamed 
Red as the life-blood spouting from a vein. 
On this God's angel either foot sustained, 
Upon the threshold seated, which appeared 

N 



ITS NOTES [page 23 

A rock of diamond. . . . 

From underneath that vestment forth he drew 

Two keys, of metal twain : the first was gold, 

Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, 

And next the burnished, he so plied the gate, 

As to content me well. ' Whenever one 

Faileth of these, that in the keyhole straight 

It turn not, to this alley then expect 

Access in vain.' Such were the words he spake. 

* One is more precious ; but the other needs 

Skill and sagacity. . . . 

From Peter these 
I hold, of him instructed, that I err 
Rather in opening than in keeping fast.* " 

The first step is explained in Cary's notes as the distinctness 
with which the conscience of the penitent reflects his offences ; the 
second (burned and cracked), his contrition on account of them; 
the third (red as blood), the glowing fervor with which he resolves 
upon the future pursuit of virtue. 

In the same notes the two keys are explained, — one, the golden, 
as denoting the divine authority of absolution ; the other, the silver, 
as typical of the learning and judgment necessary for the discharge 
of the priest's office. 

Have taken away the key. Luke xi. 52. Spoken by Christ of 
the Jewish lawyers. 

" He that watereth." Proverbs xi. 25. 

That command. From the parable of the wedding. Matthew 
xxii. 13, ''Then said the king to his servants [the Lord, that 
is, to his "strong angels"], Bind him hand and foot, and take 
him away, and cast him forth into outer darkness ; there shall be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth." One may note, in comparison, 
Revelation xx. 1-3. 

The rock-apostle. St. Peter. Petra is the Greek word for a 



page 25] NOTES 179 

rock. See Matthew xvi. 18, " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
I will build my church.'* 

P. 24, § 25. Annihilating our own personality. Should such 
annihilation be carried out indefinitely ? Evidently it is valuable 
only while one is striving to enter into a writer's thought. When 
this once is mastered, one will, if independent, reflect upon it, and 
come, so far as one modestly may, to conclusions. What is to be 
avoided is mere prejudice, mere simulation of knowledge, standing 
in the way of any right reception of wisdom of others. Ruskin 's 
opposition is not to independent thought, but to "convictions " that 
refuse to admit further enlightenment. It is the things that we 
" think we know" that stand in the way of our really learning 
something. 

Serious matters. Ruskin is both a reformer and a conservative, 
or, as some would put it, a reactionary — out of harmony with the 
old, urging a return to the best in the past. See Introduction, 
where his teaching is analyzed. 

A ditch to cleanse. Ruskin was a sturdy advocate of doing the 
nearest duty earnestly and with diligence. See Introduction, and 
notes on p. 220. 

P. 25, § 25. Roguery and lying. Observe the bitterness and 
intensity of this passage, an intensity that, becoming over-vocifer- 
ous, often weakens the real power of Ruskin's writings. See In- 
troduction, p. xxxvi. 

You can know nothing. As Carlyle, preaching the doctrine of 
silence, was one of the most outspoken and clamorous of writers, 
so Ruskin, preaching the doctrine of ignorance, is one of the most 
assured and dogmatic. Yet see if the note on § 23 above does 
not in some measure explain the apparent inconsistency. 

The thoughts of the wisest. Again a minor subject is devel- 
oped fascinatingly. Observe that this passage anticipates some 
of the ideas developed in the third lecture, "Of the Mystery of 
Life." 



180 NOTES [page 25 

To mix the music. Quoted, with variation, from Emerson's 
To Bhea. The gift of the god to the mortal is that 

"He mixes music with her thoughts, 
And saddens her with heavenly doubts.'* 

This writer. Milton, not Emerson. 

The scene with the bishops. Act III., Scene viii., in Richard 
III., where Gloster appears between two bishops, who lend them- 
selves to his hypocritical pretence of absorbed devotion and 
un willingness to accept the offered crown of England. The sub- 
servience of the prelates here is in sharp contrast with the true 
dignity and firmness displayed by Archbishop Cranmer in Henry 
VIII. (Act V., Scenes i. and iL). 

St. Francis and St. Dominic. Dante, Paradiso, Canto xi., 
11. 27-39 (Thomas Aquinas, " the Angelic Doctor." is the speaker): 

11 The Providence, that governeth the world, . . . 
Hath two ordained, who should on either hand 
In chief escort her : one. seraphic all 
In fervency; for wisdom upon earth, 
The other, splendor of cherubic light. 
I but of one will tell: he tells of both, 
Who one commendeth, which of them soe'er 
Be taken : for their deeds were to one end." 

Then follows the story of St. Francis, who, "against his father's 
will," wedded poverty, his -'stripling choice." St. Francis was 
the founder of the order of the Franciscans, as St. Dominic of the 
Dominicans. 

Who made Virgil wonder. Dante. Inferno, Canto xxiii., 11. 
126-129 : 

" I noted then 

How Virgil gazed with wonder upon him, 

Thus abjectly extended on the cross 

In banishment eternal/' 



1>age 26] NOTES 181 

[Cary's translation. The italicized words in this and in the pas- 
sage below translate the Italian in the text.] The sufferer is 
Caiaphas, the high priest who "gave the Pharisees 

" Counsel, that it were fitting for one man 
To suffer for the people." 

He is fastened to a cross so placed that he is trampled upon by 
every passer-by. The second is Pope Nicholas the Fifth, plunged, 
head down, in a pit " of the size of the fonts pf St. John the Bap- 
tist at Florence. " Dante says : 

" There stood I like the friar, that doth shrive 
A wretch for murder doomed, who, e'en when fixed, 
Calleth him back, whence death a while delays." 

— Inferno, Canto xix., Cary's translation, 11. 51-53. 

In these passages, Ruskin points out, Dante treats the great men 
of the church with stern impartiality. The noble and worthy are 
praised, while the evildoer, be it the Pope himself, gets his deserts. 
He fares no better than Caiaphas, whose punishment, indeed, 
seems the milder of the two. 

P. 26, § 25. Articles. Definite declarations of faith, like the 
"thirty-nine Articles " of the Established Church of England. 

§ 26. Mere chance prejudice. It is this that must be cleared before 
one can begin the planting of the right seed ; the fallow ground, 
the ground that has lain idle, must be broken up, and the thorns, 
the prickly prejudices that encumber it, must be rooted out and 
burned. 

Brakes, bushes, thickets. 

Break up, etc. Jeremiah iv. 3. 

§ 27. In Section 27 we enter on the second division of the 
subject. We have seen (13-26) how to understand the meaning 
of the great writers. We are now to learn how to enter into the 
spirit of their teaching. 



182 XOTES [page 26 

Passion or sensation. The two are related in meaning. Pas- 
sion is from the Latin potior, I nndergo or suffer. Sensation 
from the Latin sentio, I feel. Both have the signification of re- 
ceiving impression, absorbing experience. They denote the touch- 
faculty. What is generally meant by - ; sensational" is something 
of a sort to rouse sensation. " Sensational " literature is the crude 
stimulant necessary to rouse the dull, torpid senses of the " vulgar." 
Had they more true '-sensation," they could appreciate more re- 
fined pleasure. The finer the development of sensibilities of eye, 
ear, touch, taste, spirit, the greater the development of the man. 

P. 27, § 28. The essence of all vulgarity, . . . want of sensa- 
tion. Test this derivation. What is it that makes people read 
" yellow journals," go to vulgar plays, dress in flaring colors, enjoy 
loud and discordant music, boast themselves in ostentatious lan- 
guage ? Is not bluntness of perception, lack of tact, at the root of 
all? For further treatment of the same idea, see also Jfodern 
Painters, Vol. V., Part IX., Chapter VIL, " Of Vulgarity." 

Tact, derived from the Latin tactus. touch, from the verb tan- 
gere, to touch, whence our forms tangible and tangent. 

Mimosa, most familiar in the common sensitive plant. 3Iimosa 
pndica, a plant which closes its leaves at the touch of a finger, as 
if resenting an insult to its delicacy. 

Passion. See the beginning of the preceding paragraph. 

§ 29. Not only to know, but chiefly to feel. The keynote of 
the discussion that follows. 

P. 28, § 29. The golden balls of heaven. "The stars in their 
courses." 

The River of Life. Revelation xxii. 1. 2. 

The angels desire to look into. 1 Peter i. 12. 

Catastrophe, the calamity, the overturning, denoting the crisis 
or culmination of a story or play. It is derived from the Greek 
Karaa-rpocpT) {kat a strophe), from Kara, down, and crrptcpeLv 
(strephein) turn. 



page 29] NOTES 183 

The life of an agonized nation. Referring to the Civil War. 
then in progress in America. Too many in England gave atten- 
tion to the effect of the struggle upon trade, rather than to the 
real merits of the questions involved. (It is possible, of course, 
that, instead of referring to America, this may have reference to 
events mentioned in the note following.) 

Junketings, " private f eastings," generally at public expense. 

See noble nations murdered. Referring probably to the Russian 
suppression of the uprising in Poland. It might, however, refer also 
to dissensions in Italy, or possibly to Turkish cruelties in Asia Minor. 

P. 29, § 30. You can talk a mob. Naturally, — mob being a 
contraction of mobile, the Latin adjective signifying easily moved, 
hence fickle. 

Spend its entire national wits ... a single murder. One does 
not have to strain one's memory to recall recent instances of such 
wasted national interest. 

Its own children. Evidently another reference to the American 
Civil War. What was the status of the war in 1864, when this 
lecture was delivered ? 

The price of cotton. This was to many Englishmen the chief 
point of interest in the war. The blockade of the southern ports cut 
short the supply of cotton, English mills stopped, and men were 
thrown out of employment. Perhaps some attention to this fact, 
on the part of those so thrown out, was to be expected. Many 
Englishmen, however, — and Henry Ward Beecher did much by his 
eloquence to increase the number of these, — sided, though against 
their own interest, in the cause of the North. 

Stealing six walnuts. The pettiness of the crime selected is 
grotesque. Probably Ruskin had some recent instance in mind. 

Under circumstances, etc. A common excuse in large mercan- 
tile failures. Ruskin may have had in mind some particular bank 
failure. u By your leave " implies that the only amends expected 
of them was a graceful apology. 



184 NOTES [page 29 

Made their money. A reference to recent war in China. The 
real root of the trouble lay in China's opposition to the opium 
trade with India, a trade in which England had a lively interest. 

P. 30, § 30. Sixpence a life. Such landlords refuse improve- 
ments, and allow unsanitary conditions to remain unremedied in 
order to make a minute profit in rent, which is virtually murder at 
the rate stated. 

Piously save . . . lives of its murderers. Rather an unfair ref- 
erence to attempts to abolish capital punishment. 

Unhappy crazed boy and gray-haired clodpate Othello. Refer- 
ence to some trial fresh in the minds of his hearers. For Othello, 
see note, p. 197. This Othello is evidently aged and a " clodpate" ; 
that is, a country fellow. Ruskin (see Section 36) was in the 
habit of collecting significant clippings from the daily papers. 

''Perplexed i' the extreme." Othello. Act V., Scene ii. 

Sending a Minister of the Crown. To Russia, presumably, 
where horrible cruelties were being perpetrated. 

A revelation which asserts. "Love of money," etc., is to be 
found in 1 Timothy vi. 10. 

Declaring at the same time. A reference to the political econ- 
omy of the day. Read Unto This Last, where Ruskin discusses 
this fully. 

§ 31. Ring true still. Like a good coin when tested on the 
counter. 

P. 31, § 31. Good Samaritan . . . twopence. A reference to 
the well-known story found in Luke x. 35, the parable of " a cer- 
tain man" who "fell among thieves." "And . . . when he de- 
parted he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said 
unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, 
when I come again I will repay thee." 

There is a capacity for noble passion. Observe that Ruskin, 
while attacking what his countrymen do. has a high opinion of 
what they might, perhaps may, do, It is this positive hope that 



page 33] NOTES 185 

keeps his writings from becoming mere cynical complaints. For 
passion, see note on § 27. 

Rock-eagles. Eagles of the rocky heights, in contrast to the 
monsters of the sea. Note the picturing power of the compound. 

Scorpion whips. See 1 Kings xii. 11 and 14. ". My father hath 
chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." 

As a money-making mob. A keynote in Ruskin's denuncia- 
tions. Were his reproaches deserved in England then ? Do they 
apply in America now ? 

§ 32. Bibliomaniac. One mad with love of collecting rare 
books. The latter part of the word is plain enough. For the 
first part, see what Ruskin says of biblion, § 18. 

P. 32, § 32. Munching. As at " public dinners." 

Sparkling. As do the foolish women with their bracelets. 

Multipliable barley loaves. A reference to the miracle of the 
loaves and fishes — the five barley loaves and two small fishes that 
fed five thousand. (See Matt. xiv. ) Is it not true that a book though 
read is not diminished, but still keeps its food of thought for the 
new reader, or for the former reader if he consent to return ? 

Circulating libraries. Are they wholly an evil ? They prevent, 
perhaps, individual ownership of books and close intimacy with 
them, yet, on the other hand, consider the enlarged range of litera- 
ture opened to each reader. But do they offer the best books ? 

§ 33. We have despised, etc. Observe the formal regularity 
in the series that follows. See analysis in the Introduction. 

P. 33, § 33. For the safety of our ships. It is the absolute deter- 
mination of the time as determined in such observatories as Green- 
wich that makes accurate navigation possible. This practical reason 
relating to the accumulation of dollars is, according to Ruskin, all that 
induces the British public to support an astronomical observatory. 

British Museum. See note, § 15. 

Resolve another nebula. Break up star-mist (such as we see in 
the Milky Way) into its component stars. 



186 NOTES [page 33 

Portion for foxes. Psalm lxiii. 10. 

Negation of such discovery. The neglect to make. 

Fossil of Solenhof. Solenhof (or Solnhof) is in Bavaria, and 
is noted for quarries of lithographic stone. It was here that in 
1861 was discovered one fossil of the archseopteryx, " a genus 
notable as the oldest avian type, and as combining some charac- 
teristics of a lizard with some of a bird" (Century Dictionary). 

P. 34, § 33. Professor Owen. Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), 
a distinguished naturalist, author of Anatomy and Physiology of 
Vertebrates. 

P. 35, § 34. Free trade. Ruskin is not discussing the relative 
merits of free trade and protection ; he merely attacks the selfish- 
ness that is brought out in the average discussion. 

Ludgate apprentices. These used to stand at the doors of the 
shops near the "Ludgate," which gave its name to the modern 
street "Ludgate Hill." 

Bronzed vines, volcanic cliffs, etc. This seems to say that the 
Englishman with his damp, fat fields of clay, cannot equal in art- 
feeling the Frenchman or Italian. The actual meaning is more 
likely that the fault is not geographical so much as spiritual, — the 
Englishman cares only for his fields of clay, not for his nobler sur- 
roundings. There is, besides, a hint that the English genius, when 
aroused, is of a different type from the French or Italian. 

Venice, Austrian guns. War had recently (1848) been in prog- 
ress between Austria and Venice. Ruskin mentions elsewhere the 
sight of precious paintings tattered by shot. 

P. 36, § 35. Made stables. In the general overturn of the 
French Revolution, reverence for what had been sacred was laid 
aside with respect for kings and nobles. Nothing was sacred but 
"Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." 

Falls of Schaffhausen. A cataract of the Rhine in Switzerland. 

Cliffs of Lucerne. Lucerne, a lake of Switzerland ; it is the 
largest and most romantic lake in the interior of Switzerland. 



page 36] NOTES 187 

Tell's chapel. Erected in memory of William Tell, a grea't 
Swiss patriot — in legend at least. Some modern historians ques- 
tion whether he ever lived. 

Clarens shore. Clarens, a village of Switzerland, in the Canton 
of Vaud. 

Bellowing fire. The usual protest against railway and factory. 
See Introduction for Ruskin's attitude toward these. 

Soaped poles. In a later lecture, 1884, Ruskin again refers to 
the Alps — as viewed by Alpine clubs — in the same terms, u soaped 
poles they want to get to the top of." 

The preface to the first edition, hardly worth reproduction in full 
(see reference to it in Preface of 1882), takes up this matter of the 
Alps at some length. An accident on the Matterhorn, resulting in 
the death of a tourist and a guide, made Ruskin feel that he should 
somewhat soften the asperity of his language here. He acknowl- 
edges that the meeting of peril on the Alps is a discipline in manly 
courage, and defends the hiring guides to go into danger. " We 
need not, it seems to me, loudly blame any one for paying a guide 
to take a brave walk with him." He objects, however, to the 
personal ambition that is the incentive of the greater number of 
climbers. 

" Many an otherwise sensible person will risk his life for the sake 

of a line in future guide-books, to the fact that 4 horn was 

first ascended by Mr. X, in the year ,' — never reflecting that 

of all the lines in the page, the one that he has thus wrought for 
will be precisely the least interesting to the reader. . . . While 
no good soldier talks of the charge he has led, nor any good 
sailor of the helm he held, — every man among the Alps seems to 
lose his senses and modesty with the fall of the barometer, 1 and 
returns from his Nephelo-coccygia, 2 flourishing his ice-axe in every- 
body's face." 

1 The barometer falls as one ascends a mountain. 

* Cloud-cuckoo-land, a comic name from a play of Aristophanes. 



188 NOTES [page 36 

Cutaneous eruptions of conceit. Their conceit breaks out, like 
a red ; ' eruption ' ' on their faces. 

Hiccough of self-satisfaction apparently means that the speakers 
are too well pleased with themselves to speak smoothly. 

English mobs. Tourists. 

Chamouni is a village near Mont Blanc. 

Firing rusty howitzers. In order to listen to the echoes among 
the mountains. What would he have said to the American fashion 
of expressing patriotic devotion by the explosion of fire-crackers ? 

Towers of the vineyards. 2 Chronicles xxvi. 10 ; Isaiah v. 2 ; 
Matthew xxi. 23, and other passages. The towers were for watch- 
ers who guarded the vineyards. They are still in use in Palestine. 

P. 37, § 36. My store-drawer. Referring to his habit of collect- 
ing clippings. 

This year (1864). In most copies this stands 1867, an obvious 
error. (See date of lecture, p. 165.) 

Translator. Explained in the text. 

P. 38, § 36. 10s. About $2.50. 

The stones. Presumably work at stone-breaking. The passage 
suggested by the appeal for bread and the threat of the " stone " is 
Matthew vii. 9, " What man is there of you, whom if his son ask 
bread, will he give him a stone ? " . 

Salons. Reception halls. 

Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Prominent 
members of French society. 

P. 39, § 36. Chaine diabolique. Devil's chain. 

Cancan d'enfer. Cancan (a cancan is a loose dance) of hell. 
Ruskin wants to make the " diabolical " element emphatic. 

Morning service. This hints a comparison, " such was their 
morning worship." The quotation, from Milton's Lycidas, seems 
to let in on their indecent revel the white, pure daylight of the dawn. 

P. 40, § 37. A pension. Not in the modern military sense. Here 
it means rather a government allowance to distinguished people, 



page 42] NOTES 189 

Peculation means appropriation or theft. (It is possible that 
speculation was the word intended. Peculation is seldom followed 
by with.) 

The bread of affliction and the water of affliction. 1 Kings xxii. 
27. Isaiah, etc. See Isaiah lviii. 1, 4, and 7. 

P. 41, § 37. Satanellas, Roberts, Fausts. The operas dealing 
with the devil, — rather as a myth, however, than as an actual 
Power of Evil. Satanella by Balfe, Bobert le Diable by Meyer- 
beer, and Faust by Gounod. In such works occur passages rep- 
resenting congregations kneeling in prayer in cathedrals, and 
this simulated prayer, with its theatrical setting, Ruskin regards 
as more truly a violation of the Third Commandment than swear- 
ing, which " slips off the tongue unawares." Do you agree with 
him? 

Dio. Italian for God, used in the " mimicked prayer." 

Draw back the hem. To avoid contamination. Compare the 
same term in Matthew ix. 20, 21. 

Incense smoke. Incense is used in the extreme " high church " 
wing of the Church of England as well as in the Catholic church. 

P. 42, § 37. Property man. The functionary who looks after 
the properties, lamps, pistols, papier-mache' eatables, tin armor, 
etc., in the theatres. All this Christianity of mere showy exter- 
nals should be left to him. 

Carburetted hydrogen ghost. Carburetted hydrogen is the scien- 
tific name for illuminating gas. Ghostly apparitions produced by 
such illumination were attracting attention in 1864. "Give up 
the ghost" seems intended for a pun. 

Lazarus. The beggar who lay at the rich man's door. Luke 
xvi. 20. 

For there is a true church wherever, etc. Compare the moral of 
Lowell's Sir Launfal. 

P. 42, § 38. All these pleasures and all these virtues. Litera- 
ture, art, science, nature, and compassion for one's fellow-man. 



190 NOTES [page 43 

P. 43, § 39. Their amusement grows out of their work. In 

this lies the core of Kuskin's theory of art and true craftsmanship. 
Work is to be done lovingly for the sake of the doing. Compare 
William Morris's News from Nowhere. 

Idolatrous Jews. Ezekiel viii. 7-12. 

P. 43, § 40. Chalmers. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847). A 
distinguished Scottish divine. 

P. 44, § 41. Last of our great painters. Turner. Joseph 
Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). A famous landscape 
painter, raised from humble surroundings in youth by his genius. 
He was noted especially for his painting in water colors, in which 
medium he achieved wonderful effects. His drawings in illustra- 
tion of poems of travel and of books of description of places are 
also widely known. Critics disagree regarding the merit of his 
work. The student should examine it impartially for himself, 
remembering that later work which surpasses it may owe much 
merit to Turner's perhaps erring experiment. His work is nota- 
ble for striking brilliancy of color, and peculiarly elaborate detail, 
especially in cloud and sea. His " Slave Ship," praised highly 
by Huskin, is splendidly daring in color, and his " Fighting Tem£- 
raire," fairly familiar in reproductions, shows his love for intri- 
cate niinglings of light and shade. Whatever error may be in his 
work, it is certain that he saw much new truth, opening, as did 
few of his time, his eyes to the real forms of nature. The tendency 
in the eighteenth century, in painting as in writing, had been rather 
the imitation of a previous representation of nature than an original 
attempt to represent frankly what the eye saw. Turner realized 
the need of observation and sincere study. But, first in the move- 
ment, pioneer in a new trail, he found his task far harder than do 
those who now follow where he led and wonder at the awkward- 
ness of his progress. He relapses into the artificial, he exaggerates 
without regard to what he sees, he overdoes color and contrast. 
And yet, doing all these, he came nearer nature than the other 



page 45] NOTES 191 

men of his time, and, influenced by his obstinate aggression, others 
who followed Ruskin were won over by the fearless honesty of his 
work, and admired it perhaps unduly. It was Ruskin, at any rate, 
that gave Turner's work its fame — a fame that, when an impartial 
verdict is given, when the undulations of extravagant praise and 
unmerited censure have subsided, may be found to be well deserved. 

Kirkby Lonsdale. In Westmoreland. . 

Incantation. Spell, charm. 

The fallen kings of Hades. Isaiah xiv. 9, 10: "Hell from be- 
neath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming : ... it hath 
raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they 
shall speak, and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we ? 
Art thou become like unto us?" Hades, "the world of the 
dead," the "unseen world," is a better translation than the hell 
of the King James version. 

P. 45, § 42. That old Scythian custom. See Herodotus, Book 
IV. (Melpomene), Chapter 74: "As for the people, when any 
one dies, his nearest of kin lay him upon a wagon and take him 
round to all his friends in succession : each receives them in turn, 
and entertains them with a banquet, whereat the dead man is 
served with a portion of all that is set before the others ; this is 
done for forty days, at the end of which time the burial takes place. " 
Scythia denotes what is now the southern part of Russia. Ruskin 
had become much impressed, in reading Herodotus, with his ac- 
count of Scythian customs, and some of these — that mentioned 
here included — he had treated in his own early poems. See the 
poem entitled The Scythian Guest. 

The ice of Caina. That circle, in Dante's hell (Canto xxxii. ;, 
in which traitors and murderers receive their punishment. They 
stand neck-deep in a lake of ice, each raising his head "as peeps 
the frog croaking above the wave." 

Living Peace. Romans viii. 6: "But to be spiritually minded 
is life and peace." The revised version translates more literally, 



192 NOTES [page 45 

•• For the mind of the flesh is death ; but the mind of the spirit is 
life and peace." 

P. 46, § 42. Elsewhere. Munera Pulceris. Section 122. 

With regard to the end of Section 42. where the subject is 
shifted from personal, private kingship to the responsibilities of 
literal kings, see the Introduction, p. xli. 

P. 46, § 43. Achilles. Iliad. Book L. 1. 231. He describes 
Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Greeks, as 8riiJLo{36pos, 
derno-boros. i.e. people-eating. 

II gran rifiuto. The great refusal, denial, abdication. A refer- 
ence to Dante's Inferno. Canto iii.. 1. 56. where he speaks of one 
" who. to base fear yielding, abjured his high estate." 

§ 44\ Trent cuts you a cantel out. Shakespeare, King Henry 
IV., Part L. Act III.. Scene i. Hotspur is objecting to the par- 
tition of territory : 

" See how this river comes me cranking in, 
And cuts me from the best of all my land, 
A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle out." 

A cantel is a piece or fragment broken off. 

Can say to this man. Matthew viii. 9. 

P. 47, § 45. Do and teach. Matthew v. 19: " Whosoever there- 
fore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach 
men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven : 
but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called 
great in the kingdom of heaven.' ' 

Moth-kings, Rust-kings, Robber-kings. Indirect reference to 
Matthew vi. 10. 20. 

Broidered robe. etc. To which king does each of these wasted 
treasures belong ? 

A fourth kind of treasure. Wisdom. For the description, see 
Job xxviii. 12-19. See also Proverbs iii. 13-18. 

Delphian cliffs. Delphi was renowned as the oracle of Apollo, 
the Sun-god. 



page 49] NOTES 193 

Deep-pictured tissue, etc. See just what this treasure is. First, 
a web, deep-pictured (the work of Athena, angel of conduct) ; 
second, armor (the work of Vulcan, angel of toil) ; and, third, 
potable gold (the gift of Apollo, the angel of thought). These 
deities are called angels or messengers ; or, rather, the great angels 
that Ruskin images as proffering these gifts are identified with the 
great powers that the Greeks worshipped as their deities. For 
development of the symbolism of the Greek Athena, read Ruskin's 
Queen of the Air. 

Potable gold. Literally, gold that can be drunk, — gold dis- 
solved in acid, constituting, so old alchemists fancied, a magic 
draught, an elixir of life. (Now, however, under the name of 
chloride of gold, it is a regular article of commerce.) 

P. 48, § 46. Instead of armies of stabbers. Many writers and 
philosophers insist on this reduction of war to first principles. See 
Lowell's Biglow Papers : 

" Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 
An' go stick a feller thru, 
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it, 
God '11 send the bill to you." 

Or read Carlyle's celebrated description of war in his Sartor 
Besartus, Book II., Chapter VIII. See also Ruskin's Modern 
Painters, Part IV., Chapter XVIII., near the end. 

P. 48, § 47. The only book. Unto This Last. Modern Painters, 
Ruskin had by this time ceased to regard with enthusiasm, finding 
it immature in the light of later thought and experience. 

Half thorns, half aspen leaves. Composed, that is, half of irri- 
tation, half of fear. 

P. 49, § 48. France and England. During the reign of Napo- 
leon Third there was continual distrust between the two countries, 
and there were frequent rumors of an intended invasion of Eng- 
land. 



194 NOTES [page 49 

P. 49, § 49. A royal series. Apparently a pun. The descrip- 
tion of the books anticipates some of the ideals of Morris and the 
Kelmscott press. 

P. 49, § 50. Constitution. A national constitution is its system 
•of government. Great Britain has no constitution formulated by 
articles like that of the United States, but merely a collected body 
of custom and precedent. Here, by a pun, the constitution of the 
country is compared to the constitution — bodily condition — of a 
person who is "run down," dropsical perhaps, and needs atonic. 

Corn laws. Laws that restricted the importation of corn till the 
price attained a certain level. These kept the price of food high, 
and led indirectly to much suffering. They were repealed, after 
a good deal of lively agitation, in 1846. The new corn laws to be 
established are to be of a different sort, spiritual, supplying a finer 
bread, not for the body. 

Not of robbers. See, in the Arabian Nights, the story of Ali 
Baba and the Forty Thieves. For comment on Sesame, see note 
on p. 166. 

P. 50, § 30. Section 30. This is a statement of Ruskin's posi- 
tion on the question of private ownership, or, to put it differently, 
on the matter of socialism. He makes it quite clear that he is no 
socialist. He advances, in fact, no solution, contenting himself 
with making it clear that there is a problem to be solved. Mere 
division of land and wealth would be of no use, he tells us, until 
we can overcome the present selfish view of life as competition. 
Indeed, he has doubts about democracy, questioning frankly 
whether a noble aristocracy is not worth some price in loss of 
equality. 

P. 51, § 30. A bye one. A mere side issue, not the main ques- 
tion, which is not of land, but of labor. 

Inexorable. Not to be prayed off, that is, not to be begged off, 
disposed of. 

Azure-blooded. Blue-blooded, an epithet commonly applied to 



page 55] NOTES 195 

the upper classes. It seems to be a fact that in people delicately 
reared, and not exposed to rough weather or rude manual labor, 
the blue of the veins is more visible, from the greater delicacy of 
the skin, — not because the blood is really bluer. 

P. 52, § 30. Weasels. Who suck the blood of their victims. 

Clowns. Ignorant rustics. 

Gratis. For nothing. 

Sacrifice. But is the sacrifice worth while ? A grave question. 

Of which presently. In the lecture that follows. 



LILIES 
OF QUEENS' GARDENS 

P. 55, § 51. The motto is from the Septuagint, the Greek trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, here retranslated into English. The 
name Septuagint comes from the fact that the translation (made at 
Alexandria about 280 b.c.) was the work of seventy, or about 
seventy, translators, the Latin for seventy being septuaginta. It 
is interesting to observe the differences from the more familiar 
King James version, where the lily has become the rose. It is, 
perhaps, characteristic of Ruskin that he explains in the second 
lecture the precise object of the first. The first dealt, or was 
intended mainly to deal, with the topic " How and What to Read.'' 
This second takes as its theme "Why to Read," or, more defi- 
nitely, " Why Women should Read," aiming to bring out clearly 
just what nobility of nature a woman may hope to develop from 
the inspiration of the great masters of literature. It is her func- 
tion to be Queen of her Garden, and, lily-like in beauty, to tend 
the lilies that languish in the lack of her care. The lily, that is, 
stands at once as a symbol of the maidenly purity of ideal woman- 



196 NOTES [page 55 

hood, and as a symbol of the garden of beauty that should flourish 
under the kindly fingers of a proper queen. 

I want you to feel, etc. This sentence gives us the object of 
the lecture, and teaches, if rightly understood, a valuable lesson. 
Be sure to understand the exact significance of this whole sen- 
tence. 

Insignia. See dictionary. 

Likeness of a kingly crown. Paradise Lost, Book II. , 1. 673. 
It occurs in Milton's famous description of Death. 

P. 56, § 52. Only one pure kind of kingship. See if you can 
state what this is. On this depends the whole teaching of the 
previous lecture. 

State. From the Latin stare (past participle statum) to stand. 
Statue is from the same root. 

§ 53. Queens' Gardens. Over what territories is each of them 
to reign ? What is the garden ? 

P. 57, § 54. We cannot determine . . . until we are agreed. 
Observe this introductory outlining of the subject. See Introduc- 
tion, page xlii. 

Helpmate. A word of accidental origin. For its source, see 
Genesis ii. 18. "And the Lord said ... I will make him an help 
meet for him," a help, that is, appropriate and fitted. The words 
by mistake became combined into helpmeet, and thence, by at- 
tempted explanation, came helpmate. 

P. 58, § 56. Shakespeare has no heroes. No heroes, that is, in 
the strict sense of the word — men whom his audience can regard 
with unqualified admiration. Surely, however, Brutus comes very 
near to heroic stature. Entirely heroic would mean wholly noble, 
with no petty or detracting qualities. 

Henry the Fifth. The hero of the play so named, and the 
chief character in the two parts of King Henry IV. He appears 
at first among dissolute companions whom, when need arises, he 
puts from him, appearing as the ideal prince and general. But be 



page 59] NOTES 197 

stands rather as the type of a noble king than as a character 
closely studied and personally presented. 

Valentine. This character is but vaguely drawn compared with 
most of Shakespeare's characters. The play, far from being one 
of the "labored and perfect" plays, is recognizedly inferior to 
most of his other productions. 

Othello. The Moor of Venice, deceived by the crafty and villa- 
nous Iago into jealousy of his beautiful young wife, Desdemona, 
whom he puts to death — only to discover her real innocence when 
it is too late. The fault of Coriolanus is pride and contempt of the 
common people. Caesar errs in ambition, Antony in sensual love 
and oriental luxury. Hamlet. The spirit of Hamlet's father re- 
veals that he was murdered by Hamlet's uncle. Hamlet, however, 
takes no action, but hesitates in fatal contemplation. Romeo 
brings on the catastrophe by a series of impetuous acts. Each of 
the above gives name to the tragedy in which he appears. Anto- 
nio, the Merchant of Venice, very contentedly leaves his deliver- 
ance to others. The story of Kent is clearly enough explained 
in the text. Orlando, in As You Like It, after his defeat of the 
wrestler, his flight into the forest, and his demand of food for his 
perishing companion, becomes a very subordinate character, the 
heroine, Rosalind, doing with him quite what she will. 

Cordelia, in King Lear; Desdemona, in Othello; Isabella in 
Measure for Measure; Hermione, in The Winter'' s Tale; Imo- 
gen, in Cymbeline ; Queen Catherine, King Henry VIII. ; Per- 
dita, in The Winter's Tale; Sylvia, in Two Gentlemen of Verona; 
Viola, in Twelfth Night; Rosalind, in ./Is You Like It; Helena, 
in AIVs Well that Ends Well ; Virgilia, in Coriolanus. 

§ 57. Catastrophe. See note on p. 182. In King Lear the 
catastrophe is the king's madness and death. 

P. 59, § 57. King Lear gives over his kingdom to two of his 
daughters, Regan and Goneril, who protest the strongest affection 
for him. The third, Cordelia, who says she loves him but as she 



198 NOTES [page 59 

ought. — meaning that she loves him with all her heart. — he dis- 
inherits. The cruelty of the hypocritical two to whom he has given 
everything, with its tragic consequences, is the subject of the play. 

Othello. See preceding page. The stories of the others would 
take far too long to tell in full. The student should look them up 
in Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, or. better still, in the plays 
themselves. 

"0 murderous coxcomb." Emilia, the wife of Iago. denounces 
Othello in these words just before her death. Her villanous hus- 
band, his treachery exposed by her. puts her to death. Coxcomb 
here means fool. The professional fool or jester wore a cap shaped 
and colored like a cock's comb. 

The impatience. Juliet pretends death in order to escape to 
Romeo. He. mistaking the false death for real, poisons himself at 
the tomb, and so ruins all. 

The Winter's Tale. Leontes. unjustly suspecting his wife Her- 
mione. orders her put to death, and his child exposed to wild 
beasts. The child is saved by shepherds, and the wife, who turns 
out to have b^en concealed by friends, returns to him when, later 
in life, he repents of his folly. 

In Cymbeline. Postlmmus makes a foolish wager as to his wife's 
constancy, and. being deceived as to the result of Iachimo's at- 
tempt, orders his servant to kill her. She escapes after strange 
adventures, and is restored to her reconciled husband. 

In Measure for Measure, the selfish Claudio. at the dictates of a 
tyrant, is willing to sacrifice his sister's honor to save his own life. 

In Coriolanus. Volumnia persuades her son rather to die than to 
seek vengeance by sending the enemy against his own city. Rome. 

Julia, in Tu < Gentlemen of Verona : Hero and Beatrice. In Much 
t Nothing; unlessoned girl. Portia, in Merchant of Ven- 
ice (where she. by native talent and shrewd logic, defeats in court 
the designs of the crafty usurer. Shy lock). 

P. 60. § 58. Ophelia, in Hamlet: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth; 



FAGE 60] NOTES 199 

Regan and Goneril, in King Lear, — the old king's unfilial daugh- 
ters. (Lady Macbeth and they are very remote in kind of wicked- 
ness, — theirs is selfish, hers wholly unselfish.) 

All these, like those that follow from Scott's novels, were evi- 
dently as vividly familiar to Ruskin as his own personal friends. 
Compare the extent of his acquaintance with these noble people of 
literature with your own. 

P. 60, § 59. Walter Scott. Ruskin always estimated Scott 
highly, placing him, in an early essay, above Goethe. See Mrs. 
Meynell's comment below. 

His merely romantic prose writings. In this case those of his 
novels that, like Ivanhoe, The Talisman, and Kenilworth, were 
based less on human nature than on fancy and imagination of 
exciting adventure and stirring scenes. These are opposed by 
Ruskin to his " true works," studied from Scottish life. One critic 
(Mrs. Alice Meynell) finds even these " true works " unduly roman- 
tic. The Shakespeare exemplars she can accept. She cannot but 
"boggle at a like ascription of honor to the women of Scott." 
She explains her reason as follows : 

"These young creatures Scott made virtuous because convention 
required a virtuous maid for the hero to love, and made faultless, 
at a blow, because he could not be at the pains to work upon their 
characters. It is chilling to hear their intellect and tenderness 
praised in the noble terms that honor the intellect and tenderness 
of Imogen, Ilermione, or Perdita, of a goddess or of the fairy 
women of romance." 

Dandie Dinmont, a border farmer, in Guy Mannering ; Rob Roy, 
the outlaw, Rob Roy McGregor, in the novel of that name ; Claver- 
house, John Graham of Claverhouse, prominent in Old Mortality ; 
the " Bonnie Dundee " of the well-known song; Ellen Douglas, the 
Lady of the Lake ; Flora Maclvor, in Waverley ; Rose Bradwardine, 
in Waverley; Catherine Seyton, in The Abbot; Diana Vernon, in 
Rob Roy ; Lilias Redgauntlet, in Redgauntlet ; Alice Bridgenorth, 



200 NOTES [page 60 

in Peveril of the Peak; Alice Lee, in Woodstock ; Jeanie Deans, in 
Heart of Midlothian ; Edward Glendinning, in The Monastery; 
Colonel Gardiner and Colonel Talbot, in Waverley ; Colonel Man- 
nering, in Guy Mannering. 

P. 61, § 60. Dante. See note on p. 177. 

Dante's great poem. Dante's inspiration in writing his Divine 
Comedy was the thought of Beatrice, whom he had loved in her 
girlhood upon earth and whom in his vision he saw as watching 
over him with uplifting love in the world beyond the grave. Had 
it not been for the impulse of his devotion to her, the poet's great 
work might forever have remained unwritten. 

P. 62, § 60. A Knight of Pisa. Pannucio dal Bagno Pasano 
(1250). The extract is from his Canzone, of his change through 
Love, translated by Rossetti and appearing in his The Early Ital- 
ian Poets (see his collected works). Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
(1828-1882), an English poet of Italian parentage, combined lit- 
erary qualities of both nations. His original poems are of great 
beauty, depth, and sweetness, and his translations from the Italian 
are, as the extract shows, less like translations than original expres- 
sion. Be sure you discover the spirit of the passage quoted, the 
element for which Ruskin selected it. 

P. 63, § 61. A Greek knight. Were there knights in Greece, 
knights in the literal sense of the word as used in days of chivalry? 
If not, what does Ruskin mean by this term? In what sense might 
an Athenian or Roman be a true knight? See note on u Greek 
gentleman," p. 214. 

Andromache. The wife of Hector. See the Iliad, Book VI., the 
latter part. 

Cassandra. A Trojan prophetess, daughter of King Priam. 
She appears in the Agamemnon of -ZEschylus. 

Nausicaa. Daughter of the king of the Phseacians. She con- 
ducts the shipwrecked Ulysses to her father's court. See Odyssey, 
Book VI. 



page 63] NOTES 201 

Penelope. The wife of Ulysses. She waited his return for nine 
years, unmarried, putting off by clever expedients the insistent 
suitors for her hand. See the Odyssey, concluding books. 

Antigone. The heroine of the Antigone of Sophocles. Regard- 
less of the orders of Creon, the tyrannical king of Thebes, she 
buried by night the body of her brother, Polynices, who had fallen 
fighting against the city. Creon condemned her to be buried alive, 
but she, hearing his sentence, committed suicide, and her lover, 
Hsemon, the king's son, killed himself upon her grave. 

Iphigenia. Daughter of Agamemnon, offered as a sacrifice to 
Artemis (Diana), to induce that goddess to grant the Grecian fleet 
fair winds to Troy. Some stories represent her as actually put to 
death, others as miraculously rescued at the last moment. See 
Classical Dictionary, also Tennyson's A Bream of Fair Women. 

Alcestis. She volunteered to die in place of her husband, the 
gods offering him life if any one would voluntarily meet death in 
his stead. She was saved, according to the story, by Hercules, 
who forced Death, by main strength, to give up his prey. 

P. 63, § 62. Chaucer. The first really great English poet. He 
wrote in the latter part of the fourteenth century. The Legend of 
Good Women, one of his latest works, is intended to atone for his 
previous unkindly pictures of the female sex by recording the his- 
tories of nine ladies of constancy and purity of life. The nine 
selected are Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Medea, Lucretia, Ariadne, 
Philomela, Phyllis, and Hypermnestra. The "goodness " of most 
of these u good women" consisted, apparently, in their willingness 
to die for love when deserted. 

Spenser. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) author of the Faerie 
Queene, an allegorical poem of great beauty. Una and Britomart 
are characters in this poem, the first representing Truth, the sec- 
ond armed Chastity, overcoming all that dare battle with her. For 
Una, see Book I., for Britomart, Book III. The story of Una and 
the Lion, Book I., Canto iii., is particularly beautiful. 



202 y<:>TZ5 >agz bi 

P. 64, § 62. The lawgiver of all the earth. Moses, brought up 
by Pharaoh's daughter. Exodus ii. 10. 

Egyptian people gave. A reference to Xeith or Xeth, a goddess 
of the upper heaven, also of wisdom, resembling in many respects 

Athena of the olive-helm. For a full development of this idea 
of the symbolism in the worship of Athena (Minerva), read Ens- 
kin's Queen of the Air. The olive was sacred to Athena, 

P. 64, § 64. In all Christian ages. Observe that this extreme 
of obedience and chivalrous devotion has been peculiarly Christian, 
— has been also, one might almost say, peculiarly modern. 

P. 65. § 64. That chivalry. Chivalry involves a possible insin- 
cerity, a reverence that is mere " month-honor. n To natter women 
to their faces and disparage them when they are out of hearing, is 
not true chivalry, but is often taken by those who practise it as all 
that can be expected. True chivalry pays real reverence to woman, 
present or absent. 

Even ... in caprice. See the poem of The Glare, as told by 
Schiller in German and by Browning in KngJish, 

P. 65, § 65. The buckling on. The custom in arming a newly 
dubbed knight. See Scott's Marmion, Canto vL, stanza 12 : 

" Then at the altar Wilton kneels, 
A: : Cv-r :_r 5::~rs : :~jLi : i Lis hrrls : 
And think what next he must have felt, 
At buckling of the falchion belt! 

And jndge how Clara changed her hue, 
'While fastening to her lover's side 
A friend which, though in danger tried, 

He once had found untrue ! " 

P. p fi. § 65. Ah, wasteful woman ! From Patmore's Angel in 
ike House. See Part VIL. " The Queen/' Patmore's work is per- 
haps estimated rather too highly in Buskin's note. The poem re- 



page 68] NOTES 203 

ferred to, while containing really inspiring and ennobling passages, 
is fall of uncouth attempts at graceful wit, — found in many poets 
when they try to be unaffectedly domestic. 

P. 67, § 67. What only the other can give. See Tennyson's 
Princess, Part VII. : 

" Not like to like, but like in difference, 
Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 
The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
Till at the last she set herself to man, 
Like perfect music unto noble words." 

P. 67, § 68. A vestal temple. Yesta was the Roman goddess 
of the hearth. The fire in her temple burned perpetually. 

Household gods. The " household gods" of the Romans were 
those whose images stood in the secret innermost parts of the 
house. They were associated with the sacredness of domestic life 
and happiness. The penates were the domestic images of the 
greater gods generally worshipped ; the lares, images of minor 
deities presiding exclusively over the household. 

P. 68, § 68. Rock in a weary land. Isaiah xxxii. 2. 

Pharos. Lighthouse, from the island Pharos, bearing the great 
lighthouse at the entrance of the harbor of Alexandria — one of 
the seven wonders of the world. Compare the French phare, 
lighthouse. 

Ceiled . . . vermilion. Jeremiah xxii. 14. 

P. 68, § 69. La donna S mobile. See the Duke's song in Verdi's 
opera, Bigoletto. The meaning is, "Woman is changeable." 
"Qual pium' al vento," the line following, means, "As a feather 
in the wind." 

Variable as the shade. Scott, Marminn, Canto vi., 1. 30. 



204 NOTES [page 6$ 

Variable as the light, etc. Is Ruskin's ideal too high for human 
nature ? Is it the mere dream of an idealist ? Have there been, 
or may there be, women that at all accord with his description ? 

P. 68, § 70. Section 70 begins a new division of the lecture. 
The opening sentences of the paragraph make this clear, showing 
what has been accomplished, and what is to be taken up in the 
paragraphs following. The student will do well to note how 
helpful this is to the reader, and to apply the hint in his own 
writing. 

P. 69, § 70. That poet. William Wordsworth (1770-1850). 
In his collected poems the poem quoted is without title. In the 
extract here, three stanzas — three, rive, and the concluding stanza 
— are omitted. Observe that Nature is represented as speaking 
throughout the poem, not the poet in his own person. The two 
lines in § 71, in a countenance, etc., are from another poem by the 
same poet, beginning, " She was a phantom of delight." 

P. 71, § 72. Bitter valley of humiliation. What valleys are 
mentioned in the Bible ? What has Ruskin in mind here ? See 
Bunyan's Pilgrim'' s Progress. 

It is not the object of education, etc. Is this true only of 
women ? Does Ruskin mean that the boy is to be turned into a 
dictionary ? 

Hidden equities of divine reward, etc. Read Emerson's essay 
Compensation, where he traces out these " threads of woven fire." 

P. 72, § 72. For all who are desolate and oppressed. From the 
litany, in the service of the Church of England, Book of Common 
Prayer. 

P. 72, § 73. There is one dangerous science. Observe the bit- 
terness show T n in this passage. See Introduction, page xxxvi. 

Consecrated myrrh. Religious bitterness. 

By crawling up the steps of his judgment-throne, to divide it. 
A daring figure, characteristic of Ruskin' s more excited style of 
condemnation. 



page 77] NOTES 205 

The Spirit of the Comforter. John xv. 26, also xvi. 7. 

P. 73, § 74. Hers, general. Should a woman's education be 
less thorough than a man's ? Should she know only enough to 
enable her to sympathize in her husband's pleasures ? This para- 
graph affords a field for a good deal of discussion. Observe its 
bearing on the problems of coeducation. 

P. 73, § 75. Exquisite. Why not perfect or exact ? What does 
exquisite here imply ? In what is it characteristic of the writer ? 

P. 74, § 75. The circulating library. Kuskin here condemns 
the habit of reading, as such, all new popular works, regardless of 
their merit. By circulating libraries he refers to the great English 
concerns, Mudie's, etc., that send regularly to their subscribers 
packages of the latest popular books. 

P. 74, § 77. Moral anatomy and chemistry. Scientific study 
and analysis of character. 

Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863). His novels are 
cynical or kindly, according to the point of view of the reader. 

P. 75, § 78. The Narcissus. See a picture of the flower, noting 
the appropriateness of the figure. 

Her household motions. Wordsworth, from the poem beginning, 
14 She was a phantom of delight." 

P. 77, § 81. Dean of Christ Church, or Master of Trinity. Col- 
leges in the great English universities. The officials mentioned 
would hardly be men to patronize. 

P. 77, § 82. Joan of Arc. The maid of France who, putting on 
armor like a man, and leading the French armies, compelled Eng- 
land to raise the siege of Orleans. She was later captured, and 
burned at the stake. She was canonized (declared a saint) in the 
year 1894. See any good history of France, Shakespeare's Henry 
VI. (Part I.), also, perhaps, Mark Twain, Joan of Arc. 

DomrSmy. A village in the department of Vosges, near the 
eastern border of France. 

Diets. Legislative assemblies. 



206 NOTES [page 78 

P. 78, § 82 (note). Michelet. A noted French historian (1798- 
1874). 

De Quincey. English critic and essayist (1785-1859). He wrote 
Confessions of an Opium-eater. 

P. 78, § 83. Sharp arrows of the mighty. Coals of juniper. 
Psalm cxx. 3-4 : " What shall be given unto thee ? or what shall 
be done unto thee, thou false tongue ? Sharp arrows of the 
mighty, with coals of juniper.' ■ 

P. 78, § 84. The Mersey flows into the Irish Sea to the north of 
Wales. Snowdon is a mountain close by Menai Straits, which 
separates from the mainland the island of Anglesea, west of which 
lies Holyhead, a smaller island. The scenery of the whole region 
is rugged and inspiring. 

P. 79, § 84. Its red light. The red light of its lighthouse. 

P. 79, § 85. Christian Minerva. The work of Christian educa- 
tion and culture, Minerva being the goddess of learning and 
wisdom. 

Parnassus. A mountain of Greece, sacred to the muses. iEgina, 
an island in the iEgean sea, was noted for its temple to Minerva. 

Those inch-deep fonts of yours. The little fonts of schoolroom 
wisdom. Not that these can teach nothing, but they cannot take 
the place of the greater lessons and inspirations of nature. 

Waters which the great Lawgiver. "Reference to Exodus xvii. 
6 : u Thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out 
of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so . . .'' 

P. 80, § 85. An Unknown God. See Acts xvii. 23. Altars were 
raised in Athens so inscribed. 

P. 82, § 88. Lady. Not, according to Skeat's Dictionary, •' loaf 
giver," but " loaf-kneader." Does this latter fit so well with Ras- 
kin's meaning here ? Writers of moral and critical essays are a 
little given to fanciful and interesting, though inaccurate, etymolo- 
gies. Carlyle derives king from 'canning, or able-man. and bases 
argument on it, when the real origin of the word is very different. 






page 85] NOTES 207 

But does this slight inaccuracy make any difference in the truth 
of the main idea presented ? 

Lord, according to Skeat, means not " maintainer of laws," but 
"loaf -ward," guardian of the loaves. The lady kneaded them, 
the man kept them from enemies. These functions coincide with 
the duties that Ruskin has assigned each in paragraph 86. 

In breaking of bread. Mark xiv. 22 ; Luke xxiv. 30, 31, 35. 

P. 82, § 89. Dominus and domina. Master and mistress of the 
house, derived from the Latin domus, house. Compare the mod- 
ern vulgar " lady of the house." 

P. 83, § 90. Rex, etc. Is not this derivation also a little fanci- 
ful ? See etymological dictionary. The words are of course re- 
lated to the word right, but also to direct, and many others. 

Myrtle crown. The myrtle was sacred to Venus, goddess of 
beauty. 

Prince of Peace. Isaiah ix. 6 : " And his name shall be called 
Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, 
The Prince of Peace." 

P. 83, § 91. Dei gratia. " By the grace of God." See English 
coins, with their inscription, " Victoria, dei gratia regina" "Vic- 
toria, by the grace of God, queen." It is part of the formal title 
of the sovereign. 

P. 84, § 91. Park walls. In England the grounds of large 
private estates are called parks, 

P. 84, § 92. The shroud wrapped about his feet. Already near 
the grave. 

Chrysolite. A gem, a yellow topaz. Revelation xxi. 20. 

To play at precedence. A brief description of a great part of the 
business of "social life." 

The wild grass . . . torn up. Figurative, of course. Implying 
what? 

P. 85, § 93. Her feet have touched, etc. Tennyson, Maud, 
Part XII., stanza 6. 



208 NOTES [page 85 

P. 85, § 94. Even the light harebell. Scott, Lady of the Lake, 
Canto i., stanza 18. 

Hyperbole. A rhetorical term, denoting exaggeration for figura- 
tive effect. 

Flowers only flourish rightly. (Where should the " only M be 
placed ?) This idea of sympathy between the flowers and the 
queen of the garden will be found in Shelley's Sensitive Plant. 

P. 86, § 94. Bid the black blight, etc. Even where there is not 
direct quotation from the Bible, note the biblical turn of the lan- 
guage. 

"Come, thou south." From the Song of Solomon iv, 16. Ob- 
serve how frequently, in this lecture, Buskin refers to that great 
song of the garden. 

Florets. Botanically, such tiny flowers as make up a cluster ; here, 
hardly more than a tender diminutive for flowers. What in the 
world of men does Ruskin mean these "feeble florets" to represent ? 

The English poet's lady. Tennyson's Maud. (Maud is, observe, 
a shortened form of Matilda. ) 

Dante's great Matilda. See Dante's Purgatory, Canto xxviii., 
1. 41 and following. Dante meets her straying beside the shores 
of the river Lethe. 

"I beheld 
A lady all alone, who singing went, 
And culling flower from flower." 

It is she by whom he is drawn through the waters of Lethe, 
immersion in which removes all memory of offence, and brings 
recollection of every good deed done. Commentators differ as to 
what she represents. Lombardi says she typifies affection toward 
the holy church. 

Come into the garden. From Maud, Part XXII., stanza 1. Be 
sure to understand into what garden Buskin summons his hear- 
ers. It is the great garden of the world, where human hearts are 
thirsting for waters of comfort. 



page 91] NOTES 209 

P. 87, § 94. The larkspur. From Maud, from the same song 
as the preceding. 

P. 87, § 95. Who is it, think you ? This turn is ingenious. Is 
the connection real enough, however ? Note that this playful seri- 
ousness, this deliberately fantastic earnestness is characteristic of 
Ruskin. 

A Madeleine. (The name is related to Maud.) The faithful 
Mary Magdalene. Matthew xxviii. 1 ; Mark xvi. 1 ; Luke xxiv. 10 ; 
John xx. 11-18. The last best explains the passage in the text. 

The old garden, . . . the fiery sword. See Genesis iii. 24. 

The vine has flourished and the pomegranate budded. Song of 
Solomon vi. 11. 

Sanguine. A reference to the red of the pomegranate seed. 

Take us the foxes, the little foxes. Song of Solomon ii. 16. 

The foxes have holes, etc. Matthew viii. 20. 

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS 

One might state the real subject of this lecture as the sense of 
wonder in life, the sense that all is not commonplace and petty and 
matter-of-fact. Only from such a realization, felt by all the great- 
est (only little minds claim to understand all mysteries of life and 
death and heaven and hell) , can spring really great art. 

For comment on the general plan and design of this essay, see 
Introduction, pp. xliii-xlvi. 

P. 91, § 96. A restriction. Explained in the foot-note. Ruskin 
apparently keeps to the spirit of the rule, while violating its letter. 
He rinds fault with no particular religion, while attacking vigor- 
ously the narrowness and self-content shown by the more narrow- 
minded in every church and sect. 

This society. The lecture was delivered (1868) in the theatre 
of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, Ireland. 

The connection, etc. In these words lies the keynote of the 



210 NOTES [page 91 

lecture. It is just this connection between man's faith and man's 
craftsmanship that Kuskin is endeavoring to make clear. 

P. 92, § 97. An ingenious or pleasant essayist ... to set my 
words . . . prettily together. We notice in this work that Ruskin 
is aware of the charges that critics bring against him, filled, too, 
with a deliberate determination to dispose of any ground for the 
charge. To what extent is he successful ? 

With great plainness. Ruskin' s later style is simpler than his 
earlier manner, — less complex and less adorned. See p. v. 

Beauty of the physical clouds. See Modern Painters ; Part VII. 
is devoted to study of beauty in the clouds. 

Even as a vapor, etc. James iv. 14. 

P. 92, § 98. Fabric . . . fragile. An instance, among others, of 
Ruskin's use of rhythm (almost metre) and alliteration. That the 
/V brie of it was as /r'agile as a dr'eam, and the endurance of 
it as transient as the d'ew. 

P. 93, § 98. Man walketh. Psalm xxxix. 6. Prom the trans- 
lation used in the English prayer book, a translation earlier than 
that found in the King James Bible. This version, in many 
instances less faithful to the original, excels the " authorized" 
translation in cadence and in poetic suggestion. 

P. 93, § 99. The place that knew them. Psalm ciii. 16. Also 
see Job vii. 9. 

The mist of Eden. Genesis ii. 6. 

Note the three resemblances of life to the clouds of heaven. It 
is like them in transience, in mystery, in power. 

Wells without water. 2 Peter ii. 17. 

P. 93, § 100. Twilight . . . Titian. Titian was a famous painter 
of Venice (1477-1576). He is noted as a colorist and painter of 
landscape. " All landscape grandeur vanishes before that of Titian 
and Tintoret. ' ' His subjects are for the most part religious — » 4 The 
Assumption of the Virgin," " Death of St. Peter," "Presentation 
of the Virgin." 



page 96] NOTES 211 

Kind Irish hearts. Why Irish hearts ? What are the charac- 
teristics generally attributed to the Irish people ? 

P. 94, § 101. The work of the man. Turner, whom Ruskin 
praised in Modern Painters. See note, p. 190. 

Since Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). An Eng- 
lish portrait painter influenced by Titian and Tintoretto. Among 
his famous sitters was the actor, Garrick. He ranks as one of the 
greatest painters of England. 

Kensington. Museum at Brompton, south of Hyde Park, con- 
taining National Gallery of British Art, and other institutions. 

P. 95, § 102. As snow in summer, etc. " As snow in summer, 
and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool." 
Proverbs xxvi. 1. 

P. 95, § 103. Benjamin Woodward. An architect of promi- 
nence, partner of Sir Thomas Deane, a distinguished Irish architect 
(1792-1871). 

Museum at Oxford. An experiment in Gothic revival. The 
architects, in sympathy with Ruskin's teaching, followed his theo- 
ries, allowing their workmen to design parts of the detail, as had 
been done in the days of original Gothic art. 

Facade. Front, or chief face of a building. 

P. 96, § 104. Of modern cities. Ruskin's work is full of this 
distaste for the modern. See Introduction, pp. xvi and xxxv. 

Notoriety. What distinction from fame or celebrity ? 

From amidst streets. Read the whole sentence aloud, and note 
the harmony and beauty of sound. 

Palaces of crystal. A reference to the famous Crystal Palace, a 
huge and hideous structure of iron and glass, erected 1851. 

P. 96, § 105. Disappointment. With what object has Ruskin 
been telling about the Museum ? Why has he dwelt on his discour- 
agement ? Observe that he goes on to make use of the material 
he has presented, telling what effect this disappointment has had 
upon him. What is this effect ? See the page folio whig. 



212 NOTES [page vt 

P. 97, § 105. Pope. From his Essay on Man, Epistle ii., 11. 283- 
290. (The quotation, as given by Ruskin, is not quite accurate.) 

Pillar of darkness. Such a pillar as the cloud that guided 
Israel from Egypt, and hung over the tabernacle of the Lord. See 
Exodus. 

The arts, etc. In this lies the substance of most of Ruskin's 
teaching. 

P. 98, § 106. Answer. The complaint is common enough. 
Industry without endowment is not, in spite of millions of well- 
meant assertions, equivalent to genius. The power must be there 
before it can be developed. 

P. 99, § 107. Our heart fat. Psalm cxix. 70. 

See with our eyes, etc. John xii. 40. 

§ 108. Not one cares to think. This is the constant cry 
of all the great prophets, preachers, and reformers. Think, wake, 
wonder ! They feel the vastness and mystery of life, and must 
rouse others to share the inspiring yet disquieting experience. 

P. 100, § 108. I will tell you something. Ruskin's lectures 
are often marked by this " writing down" to his audience, as if 
they were but children. 

P. 101, § 109. Are you sure. Determine, that is, Ruskin tells 
his hearers, whether you really believe these things, or merely sub- 
scribe to them without the least thought on the subject. What is 
your real opinion on these subjects that so vitally concern us ? 

The kings of the earth, etc. Isaiah lx. 22. 

" Is not this," etc. Almost a refrain. See end of 112, 114, and 
115. What is Ruskin's object ? 

§ 110. This kind of thought . . . the morrow. Compare Mat- 
thew vi. 34, " Take therefore no thought for the morrow," etc. 

Dante. See note on p. 177. 

P. 102, § 111. Evidently unbelievable to himself. Is this your 
own opinion after reading the poem and studying Milton's biog- 
raphy and Macaulay's essay on his character ? Is it not con- 



page 103] NOTES 213 

ceivable that Milton may, with his earnestness, have believed in 
the pictures he drew ? If his story of the revolt of Satan is like 
some classic myths, is it not possible that he regarded these classic 
myths as mere perversions of the real story of the fall of the angels. 

Hesiod was a celebrated poet of Boeotia (eighth century b. c. ) . He 
wrote of the deeds and origin of the gods, telling of the overthrow 
of the elder divinities by their children. The Titans, however, as 
such, are not treated in his narrative. Ruskin would represent 
his rebellious gods as the models of Milton's rebel angels in Para- 
dise Lost. 

Dante's conception, . . . one dear Florentine maiden. Dante is 
guided by the spirit of Beatrice, whom he had loved, in vain, upon 
earth. Ruskin hardly does justice, however, to the noble symbol- 
ism of the poem. Beatrice stands for far more than " one Floren- 
tine maiden" ; otherwise the poem would not, as it does, concern 
all mankind. Compare what is said here with what is said of 
Dante in the lecture preceding. Has not Ruskin, in four years, 
slightly shifted his point of view ? 

§ 1 12. This strange lethargy. This failure to realize life's won- 
der. 

P. 103, § 112. A troubadour's guitar. A troubadour was a poet 
who sang of love. A reference to Dante's love for Beatrice. But 
the impression does not do justice to Dante's stern seriousness. 
Ruskin exaggerates unjustly. 

Idle puppets of scholastic imagination. Are Moloch, Belial, and 
the grand figure of Satan " idle puppets"? Does this fairly 
describe the Paradise Lost ? Is not Ruskin unjust ? 

Lost mortal love. Beatrice. 

§ 113. Darkness of controversy, personal grief. See the biog- 
raphy of both Milton and Dante. 

Homer, the reputed author of the Iliad and Odyssey. His name 
is hardly more than an algebraic x, representing an unknown quan- 
tity. We can know him only through tradition and his great poems. 



214 NOTES [page 103 

All Greek gentlemen. Gentlemen in what sense ? Could the 
term, in this significance, be applied to all mature male Greeks ? 

P. 104, § 114. Even for his dead friend, Patroclus, killed by 
Hector. See the Iliad, Book XVI. The basest of his adversaries 
is Paris, son of Priam and the cause of the war. 

P. 105, § 115. Katharine. See Shakespeare, King Henry VIII., 
Act IV., Scene ii. The great soldier king. See King Henry V,, 
Act IV., Scene viii. (the king reads the list of English dead): 

" But five-and-twenty. O God, thy arm was here, 
And not to us, but to thy arm alone 
Ascribe we all. . . . Take it, God, 
For it is only thine ! " 

The gods are just, etc. King Lear. V., iii., 170. 

There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Hamlet, V., ii., 10. 

P. 106, § 116. Who weigh the earth, etc. Isaiah xl. 15. 

§117. I dreamed, — possibly, of course, a real dream, but 
probably an allegory cast into dream form. 

A wise and kind host, God, who placed men in the world, his 
" stately house." 

A chance of being sent, — representing our uncertainty regard- 
ing death, and life after death. 

A piece of the garden. The quarrel represents the wars for 
territory. 

P. 107, § 118. Brass-headed nails. The wealth of the earth, the 
gold that is scattered here and there in nature to adorn the rocks, 
and that men dig up to brag about and contend over. 

Here and there . . . one . . . tried to get a little quiet. Philoso- 
phers and "dreamers" — Ruskin, of course, includes himself among 
them. How far does this dream misrepresent the tone of much of 
human life as it is lived in the world about us ? How far is it true ? 
Dare we hope that things will grow better ? 

P. 108, § 118. The child is father of the man. Prom Words- 
worth's poem without title, beginning, 



page 111] NOTES 215 

" My heart leaps up when I behold 
A rainbow in the sky." 

Eden, . . . dress and keep. Allusion to Genesis ii. 15, "The 
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to 
dress it and to keep it." 

Hewers of wood, etc. Joshua ix. 21, "Let them be hewers of 
wood and drawers of water unto the congregation." 

P. 109, § 120. The main thing is that art must not be talked 
about. Yet Ruskin is always talking about it. He means, how- 
ever, evidently to denounce the empty, deedless talk of those that 
preach but never practise. Men should be too busy doing to dis- 
cuss what they do. Ruskin's doing, observe, is active teaching. 

No true painter, etc. Is this true of other arts than 
painting ? 

Reynolds. See note on page 211. Reynolds wrote chiefly of 
landscape, etc., while his own celebrity was based on his portraits. 

P. 110, § 121. When need is, if need be. Note the fine distinc- 
tion between the subjunctive and indicative. The watchful eye is 
needed, the sustaining arm may be. 

§ 122. Gustave Dore\ Paul Gustave Dore (1832-1883) , a French 
painter, best known by his illustrations to the Bible, Dante's 
Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost, and other works. His paintings, 
like his drawings, tend to the depiction of the grand (or grandiose), 
the terrible, sublime, and horrible, though lacking, many think, 
true beauty or sublimity. He has, as painter, some characteristics 
that mark Victor Hugo as novelist. 

Furies. The Furies were goddesses (or fiends) of vengeance ; 
the Harpies, or Snatchers, were goddesses of wind and storm, foul 
creatures with faces of women and bodies and talons of birds of 
prey. 

P. Ill, § 122. Raphael (1483-1520). An Italian painter, noted 
for smooth beauty and delicate idealization, painter of the cele- 
brated Madonna di San Sisto. 



216 NOTES [page 111 

Michel Angelo (1475-1564). An Italian sculptor and painter, 
famed for the grandeur and power of his conceptions. 

Angelico. Fra Giovanni da Fiesole (1387-1455), a religious 
painter of Italy, considerably earlier, observe, than the others. 
Noted for portrayal of religious emotion. 

Correggio. Antonio Allegri (1494-1534). Italian painter. 

Art is neither to be achieved, etc. The really important idea 
here. We must. Buskin says, aim to cultivate art. not by dis- 
cussing technique, but by seeking to develop in us ths true 
spirit, the sense of wonder at life and the world, and second 
love of work that impels every true artist in his * 

§ 123. In Ireland. Ireland, during the early Saxon occupation 
of England, was more advanced than England itself in art and in 
Christian culture. 

P. 112. § 123. In a lecture since published. Tiro Paths, lectures 
on art practically applied in decoration and manufactures (pub- 
lished 1854). Euskin, in the passage referred to, disc 
two examples of barbarism. •• one a barbarism that did nut get on. 
and could not get on ; the other a barbarism that could get on. and 
did get on.'' In the first, he tells us ironically, the artist •• a] 
Aristotelian principles. Order, Symmetry, and the Definite."' " Here 
you have the most pure type possible of the principles of idealism 
in all ages : whenever people don't look at Nature, they always 
think they can improve her/' "Even the eyes are made sym- 
metrical — entirely round, instead of irregular, oval ; and the u 
set properly in the middle, instead of — as Nature has absurdly put 
it — rather under the upper lid." In the " corrigible '* picture, 
the serpent tempting Eve. " The workman's whole aim is straight 
at the facts. . . . This man does not care about arms and body, if 
he can only get at Eve's mind — show that she is pleased at being 
flattered, and yet in a state of uncomfortable hesitation. " "Noth- 
ing can be declared impossible to people who could begin thus — 
the world is open to them and all that is in it ; while, on the con- 



page 114] NOTES 217 

trary, nothing is possible to the man who did the symmetrical 
angel — the world is keyless to him ; he has built a cell for him- 
self, in which he must abide, barred up forever — there is no more 
hope for him than for a sponge or a madrepore." 

Corrigible, to be corrected ; incorrigible, beyond correction or 
help. 

§ 124. Lombardic. Of the province of Lombardy in Italy, — 
now subdivided. 

Missal-painter. The missal is strictly the mass-book of the 
Catholic church. In mediaeval days mass-books were illuminated 
or decorated by hand with most elaborate initials and other adorn- 
ments. The term later came to be applied to other books similarly 
illuminated. 

§ 125. Irish character. An interesting study. Do you agree 
with it ? Are not some of the peculiarities described to be 
detected in Ruskin's own character ? Could this be owing to 
his Celtic descent ? How much confidence is to be put into such 
studies of national character ? 

P. 113, § 127. The work of people who feel themselves wrong. 
See Browning's poem, Andrea del Sarto, "the Faultless Painter." 
"A man's reach," he tells us, " should exceed his grasp." The 
man who can execute his ideals, has ideals that need enlargement. 

P. 114, § 128. Industry, worthily followed, gives peace. A 
great truth, which, if rightly understood, would put an end to half 
the discontent with life. But one reform would be needed, one for 
which Ruskin and Morris and many others have worked strenuously 
— that is that a man's work should be one that he can take delight 
in, not mere feeding of bits of iron into a machine, or moving 
a lever at regular intervals. Work, to bless the worker, must make 
use of his intellect as well as of his lower faculties. 

The law of heaven. See Genesis iii. 19, " In the sweat of thy 
face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground." 

Whatsoever thy hand findeth. Ecclesiastes ix. 10. 



218 NOTES [page 115 

P. 115, § 129. In six thousand years. The world, according 
to one reckoning, was created some four thousand years before 
Christ. 

To till the ground, etc. From Genesis iii. 23. 

Centre and chief garden. Switzerland. 

Two forms. See the rest of the sentence. 

Forest Cantons. Lucerne. Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden. 

The Vaudois valleys are the valleys of the Cottian Alps (Pied- 
mont, Provence, and Dauphine) where the Vaudois (Waldera 
sought refuge from French persecution. 

Fevered idiotism. A reference to the cretinism of Switzerland. 
Compare Lecture L, § 23. 

Hesperides. The gardens of the Hesperides were fabulous 
gardens, guarded by the three Hesperides. daughters of Hesperus. 
They were supposed to be in the West, near Gibraltar, the site of 
the Pillars of Hercules. See Classical Dictionary. 

Saw five hundred thousand. A reference to the great famine in 
Orissa. in India (1860-18 

§ 130. She layeth her hands, etc. Proverbs xxxi. 19. 

P. 116. § 130. I was naked, etc. Matthew xxv. 36. I was a 
stranger, below, is from the same verse. 

§ 131. The art associated with civic pride and sacred principle. 
Architecture, as shown in public buildings and in churches. 

P. 117. § 132. The wild fig-tree. Revelation vi. 13. This 
lecture, like the most of Raskin's writings, turns to the arraignment 
of modern society. 

The desire of the eyes. Ezekiel xxiv. 21. 

Visions . . . unaccomplishable. This charge has been brought 
against Kuskin's own visions. But has he not done something 
in striving to make the world's reach exceed its grasp, its desires 
superior to its paltry possessions ? 

Spectra. Spectres ? or does he mean rainbow mists, opposed to 
realities ? 



page 119] NOTES 219 

After the imaginations of our evil hearts. Jeremiah iii. 17 ; vii. 
24 ; xi. 8. 

As a vapor. See p. 210. 

P. 118, § 133. Disquiets itself in vain. Psalm xxxix. 6, " Surely 
they are disquieted in vain," or, more probably, the prayer-book 
version, xxxix. 7, " Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth 
himself in vain." 

The smoke of the torment. Revelation xiv. 11. 

Firmly and instantly. What meaning has instantly here ? 

Your days are numbered. Psalm xc. 12. 

In the twinkling of an eye. 1 Corinthians xv. 52. 

He maketh the winds, etc. Psalm civ. 4, " Who maketh his 
angels spirits ; his ministers a flaming fire." Buskin's translation — 
it is not that of the prayer book — is, perhaps, his own. Anr/els 
and messengers are identical in derivative meaning. As for winds 
and spirits, see note on Spirit on p. 176. The revised version, 
by the way (1886), gives a reading much like Ruskin's. " Who 
maketh the winds his messengers." 

§ 134. la the day when. Revelation i. 7. 

P. 119, § 134. Dies Irae. The day of wrath, the Judgment Day. 
See the ancient hymn beginning with these words. 

In the flame of its west, in the fire of its sunset. 

The doors of the grave. Isaiah xxxviii. 10, "I said ... I 
shall go to the gates of the grave." 

We are in the midst of judgment, etc. A sentence not to be 
passed over lightly. 

§ 135. The sin of Ananias. Acts v. His sin was not mere 
lying, as it is generally represented. It is explained in the line 
following. 

Taking up our cross. Matthew x. 38 ; xvi. 24 ; xxvii. 32. 

They that are his. Galatians v. 24. 

Ready to leave. Luke xviii. 28-29. Also Matthew xix. 29. 

Station in Life. With reference, perhaps, to the catechism of 



220 NOTES [page 119 

the Church of England, " to do my duty in that state of life, unto 
which it shall please God to call me." Cf. Lecture I., § 2. 

P. 120, § 135. Levi's station. Mark ii. 14 ; Luke v. 27. 

Peter's. John i. 40. 

Paul's. Acts ix. 1. 

§ 136. A paragraph lacking in unity. Compare the first part 
with the last and observe the total shift of subject, from feeding 
the hungry by charity to the need of reform that shall obviate the 
need of such charity. 

To feed the hungry. Isaiah lviii. 7. 

If any man will not work, etc. 2 Thessalonians iii. 10. 

P. 121, § 137. A consistent dress for different ranks. This 
might do for each occupation, but it would be hard to reconcile us 
to such indication of rank, if rank means social position as deter- 
mined by wealth, ancestry, etc. What would you think of the plan ? 

P. 122, § 138. Buttressed. Supported by masonry. See diction- 
ary for illustration. 

I myself have washed a flight, etc. See Introduction, p. xxxviii. 
Of this particular case Ruskin writes, in Prceterita, Vol. II., 
Chap. X. : 

44 But quite the happiest bit of manual work I ever did was for 
my mother in the old inn at Sixt, where she alleged the stone stair- 
case to have become unpleasantly dirty since last year. Nobody in 
the inn appearing to think it possible to wash it, I brought the 
necessary buckets of water from the yard myself, poured them 
into beautiful image of Versailles waterworks down the fifteen or 
twenty steps of the great staircase, and with the strongest broom 
I could find, cleaned every step into its corners. It was quite lovely 
work to dash the water and drive the mud, from each, with accumu- 
lating splash down to the next." 

P. 123, § 139. Competitive examination. Wholesome when it 
is practical, to show a man's power to do the work, not to make 
statements about doing it — or about things quite unrelated to it. 






page 129] NOTES 221 

Theoretical sciences. Those that have no immediate practical 
object. 

§ 140. The Pharisee's thanksgiving. Luke xviii. 11. 

Mistake pugnacity for piety. Observe the bitterness of Ruskin 
on this subject. See note on p. 177 and the Introduction, p. xxxvi. 

P. 124, § 140. The great Book. See Lecture I., § 17. 

To make Latin verses, ... to hit a ball. Apparently Ruskin 
can give unqualified approval to neither means. What, according 
to this paragraph, would be the true education ? Observe the 
objects set before us, faithfulness and purity of spirit, and skill 
of hand in work. What relation has this subject of education to 
art ? Would it not be better if this relation were clearly brought 
out, not left to the reader to discover ? 

P. 125, § 140. Charity. 1 Corinthians xiii. 13. What is meant 
here by charity ? Does it signify merely giving to the poor ? Is 
there not a larger meaning, — love for one's fellow-man, tenderness, 
and reverence for all that is ? It is, Ruskin feels, charity in this 
sense, — a grand humanity, an inclusive kindliness, which can make 
art possible and life venerable. 



THE KING OF THE GOLDEN EIVEE 

Written during convalescence, in the year 1841, at the request of 
the young girl who was afterward to be his wife. Story as it is, 
Ruskin has been unable, in it, to refrain from the didactic. The 
story teaches a lesson ; and not a general lesson of kindliness merely, 
but a lesson regarding true wealth and happiness. In spite of the 
playful style, one feels the presence of the Ruskin who preached 
generous helpfulness. The plot is not novel, being based on many 
old tales. Much of the charm lies in the style, half playful, half 
serious. There is a hint of the touch that we find in Andersen's 
Fairy Tales,, or in Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills. There 



222 NOTES [page 129 

is, too, a feeling that the writer is not frankly and credulously 
telling a fairy tale, but that he is only gracefully " pretending." 
The story is charmingly told, and we feel the deepest interest in the 
adventures of little Gluck ; yet one does not read of him with the 
conviction with which one reads of the heroes of Andersen, Hoff- 
man, or Hawthorne. 

Note the musical delicacy of the style, with its delicate balance 
between poetry and comedy. Only by trying to write in this tone 
can one realize how difficult it is not to slip off the narrow ridge 
to the one side or the other. 

P. 129. Stiria. It is not advisable to look this up in the atlas. 

The Golden River, the Treasure Valley. Here, as in Lecture L, 
we find Raskin pointing a moral regarding gold and treasure. 

P. 130. Schwartz and Gluck are both appropriate, Schwartz 
meaning, in German, black, while Gluck means luck or good 
fortune. 

Good farmers they were. Ironical. The things that they did as 
described in the lines that follow are done by other " good farmers." 

With such a system. Ironical again. Ruskin has in mind the 
merchants and farmers of his own land, many of whom were "get- 
ting rich " at the expense of their own better natures. 

To keep their corn. A common device of speculators, sometimes 
called " cornering" the market. Certain "operations" in wheat 
{corn here means wheat, not maize) will readily occur to any 
reader of the newspapers. 

So much as a penny. Meanness is their characteristic defect. 
See its result. 

P. 131. Turnspit. The person who turned the spit or rotary 
piece of iron upon which the meat was revolved before the fire 
while roasting. 

Hardly less sparing upon themselves. Does Ruskin mean us to 
regard this as creditable to them ? 

They asked what they liked. Capitalists favored by "natural 



page 150] NOTES 223 

monopoly " have been known to do this since the day of the Black 
Brothers. It is not hard to recall instances. 

P. 132. Nobody else would venture. Why ? What relation 
between this fact and the character of the brothers ? 

Extraordinary looking little gentleman. The figure is quaint, 
but not, observe, in any way horrible or disgusting. Ruskin draws 
him with the good-natured love of the grotesque that the mediaeval 
workman showed in chiselling out a grotesque gargoyle. 

P. 134. The hob. A projection at the side of the fireplace. 

P. 135. No sooner touched the cap. Note that here we get the 
first clear hint that the old gentleman is something more than an 
old gentleman, though his dripping, before, and a few similar indi- 
cations may have appeared a bit significant. 

P. 136. Away he went after Hans. Here the comedy becomes 
almost rollicking. Ruskin makes no effort at romantic dignity. 

P. 137. I'll call again. Do you begin to have any suspicion of 
what is to come next ? Is not the " wreath of ragged cloud " that 
follows a pretty clear indication ? 

P. 138. An enormous foam globe. Have you ever seen one in 
disturbed water ? Try to imagine precisely the posture of the little 
old gentleman. Why was the ceiling " left on " in Gluck's room ? 

P. 139. Patrimony. The land that came to them as their 
inheritance. 

P. 145. Drew their swords and began fighting. Suggestive of 
what happens in the party seen in the dream. See p. 107. 

P. 147. A glacier. Be sure you learn what this is. What, by 
the way, does the sudden appearance of this glacier denote ? Is it 
quite natural, or is there a bit of magic involved ? Note, too, the 
changes in the sky. Note the uneasy, supernatural impression 
accumulating in the lines that follow. 

P. 150. The Black Stone. Was this idea original with Ruskin ? 
What have you read like it in collections of fairy tales, or in the 
Arabian Nights f 



224 NOTES [page 154 

P. 154. The priest gave him some holy water. Why was he 

willing to give it to Gluck ? 

P. 156. The water that has been refused, etc. Compare Lowell's 
Vision of Sir Launfal, 11. 822-327. 

P. 157. As Gluck gazed, . . . fresh grass. Why does this, 
which could not happen in nature, seem quite natural here ? 

The wealth is taken from the men that abuse it, and given to him 
that had shown himself worthy. In that lies the "moral." We 
see justice done, the good rewarded, the bad punished. 



INDEX 



Achilles, 192. 

advancement in death, in life, 167. 

JEschylus, Agamemnon^ 200. 

agonized nation, 183. 

Alcestis, 201. 

Alice Bridgenorth, 199. 

Alice Lee, 200. 

alpine climbing, 187. 

American Civil War, 183. 

Ananias, 219. 

Andromache, 200. 

Angelico, 216. 

angels of conduct, toil and thought, 

193. 
Anglesea, 206. 

annihilating, personality, 179. 
anonymous, 162. 
Antigone, 201. 
Antony, 197. 
apace, 175. 
apprentices, 186. 
Arabian Nights, 194. 
aristocracy, 170. 
art and environment, 186. 
Articles, 181. 
aspen, 193. 
Athena, 193, 202. 
azure-blooded, 194. 

Beatrice, 200, 213. 
bellowing fire, 187. 



Bible, 173. 

Biblical references pointed out: 
161 (4), 162 (2), 163, 166, 173 (2), 
175 (2), 176, 177, 178 (4), 181 (2), 
182 (2), 184 (3), 185, 188, 189 (2), 
190, 191, 192 (4), 195, 196, 202, 
203, 204, 205, 206 (2), 207 (3), 
208, 209 (5), 210 (5), 212 (5), 
214, 215, 217 (2) , 218 (5) , 219 (13) , 
220 (5), 221 (2). 

bibliomaniac, 185. 

bishop (derivation), 175; duties, 
176. 

bishops, scene with, Richard III., 
180. 

"book," 170. 

Book of Common Prayer, 204, 210, 
219, 220. 

brakes, 181. 

British Museum, 171. 

Britomart, 201. 

broidered robe, 192. 

broken metaphor, 176. 

Browning, Andrea del Sarto, 217. 

bye, 194. 

Caesar, 197. 
Caiaphas, 181. 
Caina, 191. 
Camilla, 159. 
Canaille, 172. 



225 



226 



INDEX 



Cancan d'enfer, 188. 

cantel, 192. 

capital punishment, 184. 

caprice, 202. 

carburetted hydrogen ghost, 189. 

Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 193. 

Cassandra, 200. 

catastrophe, 182, 197. 

Catherine Seyton, 199. 

Catholic church, 175. 

Chaine diabolique, 188. 

Chalmers, Thomas, 190. 

chameleon, 172. 

Chamouni, 188. 

charity, 221. 

Chaucer, 201. 

chivalry, 202. 

Christian chivalry, 202. 

Christian Minerva, 206. 

Christ's Hospital, 167. 

chrysolite, 207. 

circulating library, 160, 205. 

Clarens shore, 187. 

Claverhouse, 199. 

clodpate, 184. 

clowns, 195. 

compass, 167. 

competitive examination, 220. 

condemn (derivation) , 173. 

constitution, English, 194. 

Cordelia, 197. 

Coriolanus, 197, 198. 

corn laws, 194. 

Correggio, 216. 

corrigible, 217. 

cotton, and Civil War, 183. 

coxcomb, 198. 

crazed boy, 184. 

cretinism, 177, 218. 

Cymbeline, 198. 



Dandie Dinmont, 199. 

Dante, Divine Comedy, 163, 173, 

175, 177, 178, 180, 181, 191, 192, 

213. 
Dean of Christ Church, 205. 
Deane, Sir Thomas, 211. 
Dei Gratia, 207. 
Delphian cliffs, 192. 
demi-monde, 162. 
De Quincey, 206. 
derivation, inaccurate, 206. 
Diana Vernon, 199. 
Dies Iras, 219. 
Diets, 205. 
Dio, 189. 
discovery, 186. 
dissolutely, 160. 
divisions, religious, 173. 
dominus and domina, 207. 
Domremy, 205. 
Dore, Gustave, 215. 
double-belled doors, 167. 
drew, 175. 

ecelesia, 173. 

education, boy and girl, 204. 

Edward Glendinuing. 200. 

Egyptian people, 202. 

Ellen Douglas, 199. 

Ellesmere, Earl of, 162. 

Elysian gates, 171. 

Emerson, Compensation, 162, 204 ; 

Books, 165, 169 ; To Rhea, 180. 
e'meutes, 162. 
English language, 173. 
entree, 170. 
enow, 174. 
ephemeral, 169. 
episcopal function, 175. 
exquisite, 205. 



INDEX 



227 



Faubourg St. Germain, 171. 

Faust, 189. 

Flora Maclvor, 199. 

florets, 208. 

fold, 174. 

Forest Cantons, 218. 

France and England, 193. 

free trade, 186. 

Furies, 215. 

Gardiner, 200. 

glacier, 223. 

Gluck, 222. 

Golden River, 222. 

Good Samaritan, 184. 

grate, 175. 

gratis, 195. 

great Lawgiver, 206. 

Greek knight, 200. 

Greek and Syrian tragedy, 163. 

Greenwich observatory, 185. 

Guinicelli, Guido, 163. 

Gulliver's Travels, 164. 

Hades, 191. 

Hamlet, 197. 

Harpies, 215. 

Helena, 197. 

helpmate, 196. 

Henry the Fifth, 196. 

Hermione, 197. 

Hero and Beatrice, 198. 

Herodias, daughter of, 163. 

Herodotus, 191. 

heroes, 196. 

Hesiod, 213. 

Hesperides, 218. 

high church or low, 177. 

hob, 223. 

Holyhead, 206. 

holy water, 224. 



Hooker, Richard, 160. 
howitzers, 188. 
Hugo, Victor, 162. 

II gran rifuto, 192. 
Iliad, 192, 200, 213, 214. 
illiterate, 172. 

irrigation of literature, 167. 
immaculate, 161. 
Imogen, 197. 
impatience, 198. 
incantation, 191. 
incense, 189. 
inch-deep fonts, 206. 
inexorable, 194. 
Iphigenia, 201. 
Ireland, 216. 
Irish, 211. 
Isabella, 197. 

Jeanie Deans, 200. 
Joan of Arc, 205. 
Julia, 198. 
junketings, 183. 

Kensington, 211. 
Kent, 197. 
keys, 177. 

keys of heaven, 177-178. 
King Lear, 197. 
kingship, 166, 196. 
Kings' Treasuries, 165. 
Kirkby Lonsdale, 191. 

La donna e mobile, 203. 
lady, 206. 

Lady Macbeth, 198. 
Lamb, Charles, 167. 
Latinity, in Parliament, in Con- 
gress, 172. 



228 



INDEX 



Latin verses, 221. 

lawgiver, 202. 

Lazarus, 189. 

lean and flashy, 175. 

Levi's station, 220. 

Lilias Redgauntlet, 199. 

list, 175. 

literature, 171. 

Lombardic, 217. 

lord, 207. 

love of money, 184. 

Lowell, James Russell, 169; Books 
and Libraries, 165 ; Sir Launfal, 
189, 224; Biglow Papers, 193. 

Lucerne, 186. 

Lucian, 166. 

Lycidas, 174. 

Madame Drouyn de Lhuys, 188. 

Madeline, 209. 

Mammoth and Dodo, 160. 

Mannering, 200. 

Marmontel, 164. 

masked words, 172. 

Master of Trinity, 205. 

materialistic, 160. 

Max Muller, 174. 

Measure for Measure, 198. 

Medea, 163. 

Me'nageres, 162. 

Menai Straits, 206. 

Merchant of Venice, 197. 

Mersey, 206. 

Michel Angelo, 216. 

Michelet, 205. 

Milton, sincerity, 212-213; protes- 
tantism, 175 ; Lycidas, 167, 174- 
178, 188 ; Paradise Lost, 196. 

mimosa, 182. 

Minister of Crown, 184. 



missal, 217. 

mitred, 174. 

mob, 183. 

mobiliers, 162. 

monde, 162. 

money-making mob, 185. 

moral anatomy, 205. 

Morris, William, 190, 194, 217. 

mortal, 168. 

Moses, 202. 

moth-kings, 192. 

museum at Oxford, 211. 

My Lord, 168. 

myrrh, 204. 

myrtle crown, 207. 

Narcissus, 205. 
Nausicaa, 200. 
nebula, 185. 
negativism, 159. 
Neith, 202. 

newspaper reading, 169. 
noblesse, 172. 

Odyssey, 200, 201. 

Ophelia, 198. 

Orissa, 161. 

Orlando, 197. 

Orpheus, 159. 

Othello, 197. 

out-of-college education, 159. 

Owen, Sir Richard, 186. 

Pannucio del Bagno, 200. 
papal power, 175. 
Parable of the Sower, 173. 
park walls, 207. 
Parnassus, 206. 
passion or sensation, 182. 
pastor, 176. 



INDEX 



229 



Patmore, Coventry, 202-203. 

patrimony, 223. 

Paul, 220. 

peculation, 189. 

peerage of words, 172. 

Penelope, 201. 

pension, 188. 

Perdita, 197. 

perplexed i' the extreme, 184. 

Peter, 177, 220. 

Pharisee, 162. 

Pharisee's thanksgiving, 221. 

phile (</>;at?), 163. 

Pilot of Galilean lake, 174. 

pipes, 175. 

Pope, Essay on Man, 212. 

Portia, 198. 

portieres, 171. 

positivism, 159. 

potable gold, 193. 

premieres representations, 162. 

priest and presbyter, 173. 

Princess Metternich, 188. 

privy, 175. 

Privy Council, 169. 

property man, 189. 

prophet (derivation), 174. 

Qualpium' al vento, 203. 
Queen Catherine, 197. 
Queens' Gardens, 196. 

Raphael, 215. 

realistic, 160. 

recks, 174. 

Regan and Goneril, 199. 

religious self-conceit, 161, 177, 204, 

221. 
rex, 207. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 211, 215. 



ring true, 184. 

robber-kings, 192. 

Robert le Diable, 189. 

Rob Roy, 199. 

rock-apostle, 178. 

rock-eagles, 185. 

Romeo, 197. 

Rosalind, 197. 

Rose Bradwardine, 199. 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 163, 200. 

royal series, 194. 

Ruskin, style, 160, 166, 168, 210, 
212 ; tendency to digression, 159, 
169, 179 ; tendency to fantastic, 
169, 209; titles, 167; opinion of 
Turner, 191; theories of life, art, 
and work, 190, 215, 216, 217 ; love 
of thoroughness, 172, 179, 220; 
ideas concerning education, 172, 
221 ; connection with schools, 
167; views on socialism, 194; 
conservatism, 179, 187, 211 ; per- 
sonal mood, etc., 163, 165, 168, 
179, 188, 211, 214, 218. 

Ruskin, writings, Kings' Treasur- 
ies, 165; Queens 1 Gardens, 166; 
Mystery of Life, 166; Modern 
Painters, 182, 193, 210 ; Munera 
Pulveris, 192 ; Queen of the Air, 
170, 193, 202 ; Time and Tide, 167, 
176; Two Paths, 216-217; Unto 
this Last, 168, 184, 193. 

Russian atrocities, 183. 

rust-kings, 192. 

St. Dominic, 180. 
St. Francis, 180. 
Salisbury steeple, 176. 
salons, 188. 
satanellas, 189. 



230 



INDEX 



Schaffhausen, 186. 

Schwartz, 222. 

Scott, Sir Walter, romantic novels, 

199, 200; Marmion, 202, 203; 

Lady of the Lake, 208, 209, 210. 
scrannel, 175. 
Scythian, 191. 
sensation, 182. 
Septuagint, 195. 
Sesame, 166. 
Shakespeare, 180, 184, 192, 196-199, 

214. 
shipping, safety of, 185. 
shove, 174. 
sic, 162. 

sixpence a life, 184. 
six thousand years, 217. 
six walnuts, 183. 
smooth-braided, 161. 
Snowdon, 206. 
socialism, 194. 
Solenhof, 186. 
solennis, 161. 
Sophocles, Antigone, 201. 
spectra, 218. 
speculation in corn, 222. 
sped, 174. 
Spenser, 201. 
spirit, 176. 

state (derivation), 196. 
station in life, 219. 
Stiria, 222. 

stones (penalty), 188. 
structure of lectures, 172, 179, 181, 

185, 192, 195, 196, 204, 209, 220. 
Swain, 174. 
Swift, Jonathan, 164. 
Sylvia, 197. 



tact, 182. 

Talbot, 200. 

Tell's chapel, 187. 

Tennyson, Maud, 207, 208, 209; 

Princess, 203. 
Thackeray, William M., 205. 
theoretical sciences, 221. 
Titian, 210. 

towers of the vineyard, 188. 
treasure of Wisdom, 193. 
troubadour, 213. 
truism, 160. 
Turner, J. M. W., 190. 
turnspit, 222. 
twain, 174. 

Una, 201. 

Valentine, 197. 

valley of humiliation, 204. 

vaudevilles, 162. 

Vaudois valleys, 218. 

Venice, 186. 

vestal temple, 203. 

Viola, 197. 

Virgil, 180. 

Virgiiia, 197. 

virtue, out of fashion, 168. 

virtuous woman, 161. 

Voyage of Yacht Sunbeam, 170. 

vulgar, 161. 

vulgarity, 182. 

war, 193. 
weasels, 195. 
Winter's Tale, 198. 
woman's education, 205. 
Woodward, Benjamin, 211. 
Wordsworth,William, 204, 214-215. 



COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 
IN ENGLISH. 

For 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905. 
Official List* 

REQUIRED FOR CAREFUL STUDY. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation 

with America 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Macaulay's Essays on Milton 

and Addison 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Milton's Minor Poems .... 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I. 

and II 1900 

Shakespeare's Macbeth . . . 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

REQUIRED FOR GENERAL READING. 

Addison's The Sir Roger de 

Coverley Papers 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns . . . 1903 1904 1905 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Cooper's The Last of the Mohi- 
cans 1900 1901 1902 

De Quincey's The Flight of a 
Tartar Tribe 1900 

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite . 1900 

Eliot's Silas Marner 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Goldsmiths The Vicar of Wake- 
field 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Lowell's The Vision of Sir Laun- 
fal 1900 1903 1904 1905 

Pope's Iliad, Books I., VI., XXII., 
and XXIV 1900 1901 1902 

Scott's Ivanhoe 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Shakespeare's The Merchant of 

Venice 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar . . 1903 1904 1905 

Tennyson's The Princess . . . 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 



MACMILLAN'S 

POCKET SERIES OF ENGLISH 
CLASSICS 

Uniform in Size and Binding 
Levanteen - - 25 Cents Each 



Comments 

Emily I. Meader, Classical High School, Providence, R. I. 

" The samples of new English Classics meet a need I have felt in 
regard to the school editions of the classics. These books are artistic 
in make-up, as well as cheap. The clothes of our books, as of our 
friends, influence our enjoyment of their blessings. It has seemed to 
me incongruous to try to establish and cultivate a taste for good litera- 
ture, which is essentially and delightfully diverse, when that literature is 
bound in uniform drab cloth." 

Mary F. Hendrick, Normal School, Cortlandt, N. Y. 

"Your English Classics Series is a little gem. It is cheap, durably 
bound, excellent type and paper, and especially well adapted for students' 
work, as the notes are to the point and not burdensome." 

Mary C. Lovejoy, Central High School, Buffalo, N. Y. 

" I think you have provided such an attractive help for students that 
they will be incited to add to their collection of books." 

Professor L. L. Sprague, Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Pa. 

" The ' Essay on Milton ' and ' Essay on Addison ' are exceedingly 
well edited, and in beauty of type and binding are not surpassed by 
similar works of any other publishing house." 

B. W. Hutchinson, Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, Lima, N. Y. 

" I am in receipt of French's ' Macaulay's Essay on Milton,' and am 
delighted with the book. The publisher's part of the work deserves 
special mention as being exceptionally good, while the editor's task 
appears to be done in first-class taste throughout." 

Superintendent J. C. Simpson, Portsmouth, N. H. 

" I congratulate you upon your happy combination of an artistic and 
scholarly book with a price that makes it easily available." 



Comments on Pocket Series 



T. C. Blaisdell, Fifth Avenue Normal School, Pittsburg, Pa. 

" I wish to thank you for a copy of ' The Princess,' in your Pocket 
Series: I have examined the volume with pleasure. The introduction 
is excellent, the brief treatment of Tennyson's Work and Art being 
especially interesting and helpful. The notes ?X times seem to explain 
the obvious ; in a book for young students, however, that is the safe side 
to err on. The editing, the clear type, the dainty binding, and the * pocket ' 
size combine to make the book one that will be a pleasure to the student." 

Superintendent Wm. E. Chancellor, Bloomfield, N. J. 

" I have read from cover to cover the edition of ■ Macaulay's Essay 
on Addison,' by Principal French, of Hyde Park High School, Chicago, 
and find the edition all that can be desired. The several introductions 
are, from my point of view, exactly what they ought to be. The notes 
seem to me particularly wise and helpful. Your edition is not only the 
best at its price, but it is better than every other which I have seen, and 
I have taken great pains to inform myself regarding all editions of 
English Classics for schools." 

Francis A. Bagnall, Principal High School, St. Albans, Vt. 

•'They appeal to me as combining convenience and attractiveness of 
form and excellence of contents." 

B. A. Heydrick, State Normal School, Millersville, Pa. 

" I know of no edition that can compare with yours in attractiveness 
and cheapness. So far as I have examined it the editor's work has been 
judiciously performed. But well-edited texts are easy to find : you have 
done something new in giving us a beautiful book, one that will teach 
pupils to love and care for books; and, which seems to me quite as 
important, you have made an edition which does not look ' school- 
booky.' " 

Eliza M. Bullock, Principal Girls' High School, Montgomery, Ala. 

" I think your books of the Pocket Series of English Classics the best 
I have seen, the most complete in every way. I am enthusiastic about 
the delightful volumes I have seen." 

C. E. E Mosher, Preparatory School, New Bedford, Mass. 

" Their outward form and dress are a pleasure to the eye, while theii 
inward matter and arrangement are a source of delight to the mind." 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



Works by Prof. E. H. LEWIS 

Of Lewis Institute and the University of Chicago 



A First Book in Writing English 

i2tno. Buckram. Price 80 cents 

Albert H. Smyth, Central High School, Philadelphia. 

" I have read it carefully and am much pleased with the way the work 
has been done. It is careful, thoughtful, and clearly arranged. The 
quotations are apt and judiciously selected. It is the best book of its 
size and scope that I am acquainted with." 

Sarah V. Chollar, State Normal School, Potsdam, N. Y. 

" The author has made an admirable selection of topics for treatment 
in this book, and has presented them in a way that cannot fail to be 
helpful to teachers who have classes doing this grade of work." 



An Introduction to the Study of Literature 

For the use of Secondary and Graded Schools. 

1 2 mo. Cloth. Price $1.00 

This book is a collection of short masterpieces of modern literature 
arranged in groups, each group interpreting some one phase of adolescent 

interest, e.g., " The Athlete; rhe Heroism of War; " " The Heroism of 

Peace;" "The Adventurer;" "The Far Goal;" "The Morning Land- 
scape ; " " The Gentleman ; " " The Hearth." A chronological table is 
given at the end of the book, by centuries and half centuries, showing at 
what age each author began to publish, and the name and date of his first 
book. The selections together form an anthology of English prose and 
verse, but it is more than an ordinary anthology; it is constructed so as to 
be of value not only to the scholar but also to the teacher and general 
reader. Each section is opened with a critical introduction which will 
serve as a guide both to teacher and student. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

$6 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 




From Chaucer to Arnold 

Types of Literary Art m Prose and Verse. An Introduction to 
English Literature, with Preface and Notes. By Andrew J. 
George, A.M., Department of English, High School, Newton, Mass. 

Cloth. 8vo. Price $1.00 

Albert H. Smyth, Central High School, Philadelphia. 

" In George's 4 Chaucer to Arnold ' I recognize many favorites and 
think the editing and the annotation remarkably well done ; the notes 
are sumciently brief and clear, the bibliography judicious, and a fine 
spirit of appreciation is shown." 



Principles of English Grammar 

For the use of Schools. By George R. Carpenter, Professor of 
Rhetoric and English Composition in Columbia University. 

i2mo. Half = Leather. Price 75 cents 

Professor Fred W. Reynolds, University of Utah. 

41 For a straightforward discussion of the principles of grammar, the 
book is among the best I have ever seen." 



American Prose Selections 

With Critical Introductions by Various Writers and a General Intro* 
duction edited by George Rice Carpenter, Columbia University. 

i2mo. Cloth. Price $1.00 

F. A. Voght, Principal Central High School, Buffalo. 

11 It is a pleasure to take up so handsome a volume. The selections 
are most admirable and the character sketches of authors are bright, 
chatty, clear, and concise." 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



x/oi 




v9' 



W 







«0? 



















,0* ,»»!•• Vi 




W 






^"?n 



* v "V •« »•• .^"^ WW" .** *<► \«5 



i>«* 




* •?• 



«1 Q. 











v. '••'• jr 



•*■- 









«4 °* .1 












*\ " 



^** 9 



^ *\S 






>. * 



© N 






v> -v ^ ~ • •» ° A u 












^*""> 



v .*•: 









;' 



BOOKBINDING B .. • A <. ** V. « * ,0 <3». ' - 

*4 oa^ssia- -^^ ?£Mz&** *o 





wmmmmm 

H m 

■I 

mm 

m mm 
mm 

■ 




Mil 



II 

■ ■ ■ 

Ira HL 

■ 

H I 

H « 

H ■^■fl 

8ra| B BH 

H H 

■ 

■ ■ 
■ ■ 

■ 

Wmmmk 



